Re: missing content-length

There are times where the web server can't determine the length of the content, such as with a script. Additionally, there are times when you would think the file being returned is static enough (like a download of an MP3), but in reality there is a script behind the scenes that's actually bouncing the contents to you (such as using sessions ID's or such) such that the server itself never knows EXACTLY what the file is, and therefore can't stat() the file to determine it's length.

I hate to give answers like this, but: tough. Even download managers (like GoZilla and Download Accelerator) can't always determine the filesize.

Comment on Re: missing content-length

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Re: Re: missing content-length by schalker (Initiate) on Jan 22, 2001 at 21:20 UTC
Thanks for your reply: I guess I know what you are talking about, I'm just wondering why Netscape knows the filesize when I manually download an emusic MP3 (can be seen in the progress bar). Anyway, my current workaround is the following: emusic samples with 128Kb/sec. Furthermore, the expected length of a song is given in min:sec on the refferring page. So I extract the duration of each song, calculate the expected file size and check if my downloaded file fits approximately within this range. It's a hack and only recognizes gross errors.	[reply]

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Re: Re: missing content-length
by schalker (Initiate) on Jan 22, 2001 at 21:20 UTC

Anyway, my current workaround is the following: emusic samples with 128Kb/sec. Furthermore, the expected length of a song is given in min:sec on the refferring page. So I extract the duration of each song, calculate the expected file size and check if my downloaded file fits approximately within this range. It's a hack and only recognizes gross errors.

[reply]