Why is size required

[nicolasroger17]

Hi,
I'm looking at your library to parse the range http header.
And I was wondering why you are making the size a required field, even though it is not part of the header.
A range is supposed to be like this:

Range: <unit>=<range-start>-
Range: <unit>=<range-start>-<range-end>
Range: <unit>=<range-start>-<range-end>, <range-start>-<range-end>
Range: <unit>=<range-start>-<range-end>, <range-start>-<range-end>, <range-start>-<range-end>

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Range

I've tried to go around it by setting size to Infinity, but then when I use this format of header:

Range: bytes=10-

then it returns end: Infinity instead of null.

I've read the comment here: https://github.com/expressjs/express/blob/b97faff6e2aa4d34d79485fe4331cb0eec13ad57/lib/request.js#L188
But if you look at these simple examples:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8293687/sample-http-range-request-session#answer-8507991
The client is only sending the range, without any content-length.

Or do you mean that in order to parse the range, the server should get the size of the file, given that he will need it to correctly format the content-range header in the response.

[dougwilson]

Hi @nicolasroger17 unfortunately the original author is no longer around, and I don't know the reasoning to why the current API. There are certainly a lot of folks using the current API, though that doesn't mean it cannot be changed with a major version bump (and usually assessing what it would change in the existing uses so a migration doc can be written up).

Sorry I don't have the answer for you. Since it' been a few months, it is unlikely the author will answer your question, so I don't want to just leave your issue open indefinately.

Or do you mean that in order to parse the range, the server should get the size of the file, given that he will need it to correctly format the content-range header in the response.

Correct: "[...] where size is the maximum size of the resource." 👍

[nicolasroger17]

Thanks for the reply, @dougwilson we can close it np