[vlc-devel] Bug in HTTP access module

[jpd at m2x.nl]

On Fri, March 6, 2009 13:30, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:41:36 +0100, Cyril MATHE
> <cmathe at actech-innovation.com> wrote:
>> I agree with you that VLC is asking for the entire file. What I' have
>> said is that some embeded Apache server doesn't return the whole file, I
>> don't really know why, but just one part of this file. So we need to ask
>> for the next part when VLC finishes to read the previous part.
>
> Several people have complained that VLC is doing too _many_ HTTP requests
> already, and needlessly stressing servers. I am against adding any hack
> that would further add requests, especially to work around bugs in other
> people's code.

That poses the question whether a partial answer (when marked as such?)
is a bug even if vlc did ask for the whole answer. This probably merits
looking at the spec. If the standard does not forbid it then vlc perhaps
should deal with the situation properly.

As for the overall amount of http requests, several questions occur to me.

For one, why does it more http requests than others? What causes it and
what can be done to alleviate that?

For another, does vlc support http keep-alive and if not, how hard would
it be to implement such a thing?