Re: HTTP header processing sequence

Roger

Thanks for this. I understand how basic functionality, but my question is more about how the browser match up all the responses send from the server from the client.

I have installed an IE extension that allows you to view all the requests made for a specific web page. Initially it sends the request for the html source (or initial url specified), and if there are any more objects to request (such as images etc) it does so, and then wait for the server to reply sending back the requested data using appropriate headers.

I am still unclear as to the exact sequence this is processed. How does the (browser) client know how to match up multiple received responses from the server with GET-requests, as this does not appear to be sequential. If you had exactly one GET-request, you could assume that the HTTP/1.1 200 OK header received corresponds to that, but what happens to multiple GET-requests?

If you looked at TCP headers, you could determine this via specific field values (counters or id numbers?) that match up send and recv packets, but is this the same for http headers? (Since we're not looking at raw TCP as this is very low level)

TIA

Roger Hunen wrote:

The browser opens a TCP connection to the server, sends a HTTP request
and waits for the server response (status + data) before sending the next
request. So the association of request and response is no problem.

The browser may send another request over the same TCP connection
once the response to the previous request has been received and/or may
open multiple connections to the same server.

Regards,
-Roger
--
E-mail: rhunen@xxxxxxxxx
Home: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rhunen
ADSL: http://adsl.hunen.net


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