

What is a HTTP HEAD request good for? — Some uses - ochronus
http://blog.mostof.it/what-is-a-http-head-request-good-for-some-uses/

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iuguy
Head can also sometimes get around restrictions in place. Some web servers
place access control restrictions on GET and POST requests only, and when
combined with other silliness (such as returning 200 OK or 404 errors for
almost everything) then the HEAD will usually tell you what's what.

Of course sometimes it's the other way around and the HEAD request will give
you 200 for everything.

~~~
forgotusername
Conversely, HEAD sometimes doesn't accurately reflect the headers for a
resource available via GET. For example this is the case with App Engine's
broken webapp framework (and every app that consumes it):

    
    
      $ curl -sD- http://appengine-cookbook.appspot.com/|head -1
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      $ curl -s --head http://appengine-cookbook.appspot.com/|head -1
      HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed

