[Varnish] #406: Add information about ESI documents needing to be XML docs

[Varnish]

#406: Add information about ESI documents needing to be XML docs
---------------------------------+------------------------------------------
 Reporter:  eugaia               |        Type:  documentation
   Status:  new                  |    Priority:  low          
Milestone:                       |   Component:  documentation
  Version:  2.0                  |    Severity:  trivial      
 Keywords:  esi xml opening tag  |  
---------------------------------+------------------------------------------
 Hi,

 One problem I found when using ESI was that it didn't work if I had text
 before the first <esi:include... /> tag and if the document itself isn't
 doesn't have an opening <tag>. I'm sure that this is part of the ESI
 recommendation, and is my fault for not reading things thoroughly, but I
 felt it might be useful to mention it on this page:

 http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/wiki/ESIfeatures

 perhaps at the bottom in the things to remember, as others may be puzzled
 why things are not working as they expected.


 On a level not relating to the documentation, but which I'll include here
 : have you considered dropping the requirement for an opening XML tag with
 ESI processing?  This restricts using ESI to XML-type documents, or ones
 that can be solely built from parts, unless you use something like
 <esi:include src="/empty" /> at the beginning so that further ESI's are
 correctly processed.  This seems a little unnecessary.

 One use, for example, might be to build CSS files 'on the fly' using
 Varnish - I may well do this, rather than doing CSS or HTML 'includes' -
 as they will be quicker to load in the browser.  It seems to me that you
 are gaining nothing by imposing the opening tag requirement, and you are
 creating an added overhead (both when you do something like including an
 empty file like above and I'm guessing under normal ESI processing, since
 are you not checking for opening tags?).

 Just a thought, anyway.

 Well done on a cracking product. Looking forward to future
 updates/improvements.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/ticket/406>
Varnish <http://varnish.projects.linpro.no/>
The Varnish HTTP Accelerator