cache control

I need to make sure that browsers don't cache the response from my web service. One way to do that is to append a querystring variable with a random value. Another way is to have the server set a header of Cache-Control: max-age=0 on each response.

I can easly create a message handler to perform either of these operations, but shouldn't there be a simple property set somewhere on the WebApi that does this automatically? The cache-control header is prefered, of course.

-Matt

Re: cache control

I wouldn't say a property is the preferred way. I would argue for the message handler approach. It's more a matter of how you would interact with the property. I can't imagine everyone would want one and only one mechanism for setting that for all responses across their apps, which a property -- I suppose on your HttpConfiguration -- would promote. If we had a configuration-per-route, this might be a decent option.

Re: cache control

web.config is also an option,

<system.webServer>
 
    <httpProtocol>
      <customHeaders>
        <add name="cache-control" value="no-cache" />
      </customHeaders>
    </httpProtocol>
  </system.webServer>

Re: cache control

imran_ku07

web.config is also an option,

<system.webServer>
 
    <httpProtocol>
      <customHeaders>
        <add name="cache-control" value="no-cache" />
      </customHeaders>
    </httpProtocol>
  </system.webServer>

I always forget this option. :)

Re: cache control

panesofglass
I always forget this option. :)

The downside is that it does not work in Self Host.

Re: cache control

We will probably not have anything like [OutputCache] in the first RTM release (which admittedly does more than setting cache headers, but that is one of the side-effects of it).

If you want to set individual headers, you can change your action signature to return HttpResponseMessage instead, and then you can use "Request.CreateResponse" as a shortcut to easily create a response with a serialized (and content-type negotiated) object in it; then you can tweak the headers as you see fit.