External SHA hashes instead? (was: Re: Content length, EOF -- ways to resolve whether we received everything)

It wouldn't just be about content integrity; it's also about caching. If
the client has fetched a file before, and it hasn't changed since, there's
no need to waste time and bandwidth fetching it again.

On Fri, 30 Oct 2020 at 23:34, Nathan Galt <mailinglists at ngalt.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On Oct 30, 2020, at 4:50 AM, Bj?rn W?rmedal <bjorn.warmedal at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > There's been a lot of discussions about the lack of an end-of-message
> indicator in the protocol. Clearly it's something that a lot of client and
> server implementers are missing.
> >
> > A proposal that arose (I think acdw may have been the first to suggest
> it; correct me if I'm wrong) was to include a "content-length: <nr of
> bytes>" in the <META> of a status 20 response. It's a simple thing to add,
> that doesn't extend the protocol into bloat.
> >
> > "But, ew0k! The <META> is for MIME types! That's not a MIME type!"
> >
> > Yes, this is true. Would that cause an issue? In that case calling it
> "x-gemi-content-length" should resolve it, as the "x-" prefix is for
> experimental types and any receiver that doesn't recognize it will ignore
> it. I'm aware that it still doesn't convey info on the *type* of content,
> and thereby doesn't belong among MIME type info, but it's a compromise I'm
> willing to make.
> >
> > Are you?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > BW/ew0k
>
>
> If you?re worried whether the occasional big(gish) file transferred
> correctly and don?t want to stand up an HTTP server, have you considered
> publishing SHA-256 or -512 hashes, like one does for Linux-distribution
> .iso files?
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