You're right, having a slash there made Apache handle the redirect.
Some further testing showed:
  1. Apache handles the redirect internally when the value of the Location header begins with a slash
  2. Apache doesn't handle it internally when it's a relative path
  3. Apache doesn't handle it internally when it's an absolute URL (m!^http://!)
Update (200112191738+0200)
While watching tv, suddenly it all became clear to me: a webserver simply cannot handle relative paths, because it doesn't handle paths! The webserver can only handle absolute requests, and then only on the current host (Which seems logical if you know what the request line is: GET /foo.html HTTP/1.1, no hostname in there! (The hostname is in the Host-header, or there isn't a hostname at all)).
Browsers, however, CAN handle relative things, or should at least be able to. That's why Apache lets the browser handle "test.txt", but can handle "/test/test.txt" without asking the browser.

Am I right now, or was this sudden brainstorm wrong too? 

2;0 juerd@ouranos:~$ perl -e'undef christmas'
Segmentation fault
2;139 juerd@ouranos:~$

[download]

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Picture A Day by Juerd
in thread A Picture A Day by merlyn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.