xml-dev - Re: Streaming XML back to IE browser problem

[Rick JELLIFFE <ricko@geotempo.com>]

"Hanson, Jon" wrote:
> 
> ... it suddenly started working ...

In that case, you almost certainly are having cache effects that you are
not aware of.  This can make debugging very difficult.  (If ever I am
told that I have only a month to live, the first thing I will do is get
a machine gun and hunt for the guy who invented caches, so that I will
have made a contribution to society.)

There was some email advice on this list a few months ago, but the gist
is

 1) If you are using a proxy server, don't (go direct, proxy servers
often cache)
 
 2) In your ASP (or JSP etc) code, make sure you set the HTTP headers
correctly (or put in explicit META tags using the http-equiv attribute)
to turn off caching.  (There are three headers that need to be set: see
your documentation, look for material about  cache=no-cache  or pragma. 
Any specific ASP code anyone?)   If your pages themselves download other
resources such as XML files or CSS or Javascript files that you are
changing, you should also set up your webserver so that these are sent
with no caching.

 3) And/or set your local PC caching to as low a value as possible;
power down each day or at significant times; use shift-reload (or is it
ctl-reload) rather than just the reload button (it *seems* to fetch from
the WWW rather than from local cache).   


I wish browser makers would put a big fat  checkbox  in their
preferences alert box called "direct debug" which would 
 * turn off all caching and proxies and 
 * add an extra button to the front panel of the browser to flush all
chaces and memory and restart all VMs and garbage collect and return any
leaked memory!

Of course, after the system is debugged, caches are great.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe