Re: 504 Gateway Timeout: another thing for the wish list

["Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU>]

robH asked:

> thinking about "504 Gateway Timeout" a bit more last night; shouldn't
> there be a mechanism in HTTP to let the server change its mind about the
> response ?, e.g.
> 
> HTTP/1.0 200 OK
> Content-type: text/html
> 
> <P>performing the search..........</P>
> 
> ****** something here - I've no idea what, is this what SIGURG is for? **
> HTTP/1.0 504 Gateway Timeout
> Content-type: text/html
> 
> <P>Sorry the search timed out</P>

It isn't possible to do that without either a transport hack (non-portable)
or a special character escape sequence (non-8bit clean).  The only good
solution is to continue moving toward HTTP/2.0 with something like SCP
multiplexing the data stream.

.....Roy