[R-pkg-devel] URL woes at CRAN: Anaconda edition

[Ivan Krylov]

On Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:49:36 -0600
Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:

>   Found the following (possibly) invalid URLs:
>     URL: https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/r-tiledb
>       From: README.md
>       Status: 400
>       Message: Bad Request

The problem is that https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/PACKAGE fails to
answer to HEAD requests and only answers to GET requests. HEAD differs
from GET in that there is no need to send the actual content of the page
in response to the request; it is enough to say "200 OK" (and pass the
check) or, as it happens here, "400 Bad Request".

It may help to ask ContinuumIO to support HEAD requests by filing a bug
report for the Anaconda.org website at
<https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/>. It may be worth
referencing RFC 9110, section 9.3.2
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9110#name-head>, in
particular:

>> The HEAD method is identical to GET except that the server MUST NOT
>> send content in the response.

>> The server SHOULD send the same header fields in response to a HEAD
>> request as it would have sent if the request method had been GET.

Arguably, the spirit of the standard is being violated here (if not the
letter, which only mentions headers).

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan