13.1.2 Warnings

Whenever a cache returns a response that is neither first-hand nor "fresh enough" (in the sense of condition 2 in section 13.1.1), it must attach a warning to that effect, using a Warning response- header. This warning allows clients to take appropriate action.

Warnings may be used for other purposes, both cache-related and otherwise. The use of a warning, rather than an error status code, distinguish these responses from true failures.

Warnings are always cachable, because they never weaken the transparency of a response. This means that warnings can be passed to HTTP/1.0 caches without danger; such caches will simply pass the warning along as an entity-header in the response.

Warnings are assigned numbers between 0 and 99. This specification defines the code numbers and meanings of each currently assigned warnings, allowing a client or cache to take automated action in some (but not all) cases.

Warnings also carry a warning text. The text may be in any appropriate natural language (perhaps based on the client's Accept headers), and include an optional indication of what character set is used.

Multiple warnings may be attached to a response (either by the origin server or by a cache), including multiple warnings with the same code number. For example, a server may provide the same warning with texts in both English and Basque.

When multiple warnings are attached to a response, it may not be practical or reasonable to display all of them to the user. This version of HTTP does not specify strict priority rules for deciding which warnings to display and in what order, but does suggest some heuristics. The Warning header and the currently defined warnings are described in section 14.45.