[OT] A question for you web geeks out there ...

[Alex Beamish]

On 4/17/07, Paul King <sciguy-Ja3L+HSX0kI at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> Hello:
>
> I have been given the job of maintaining a web site on Yahoo (not my
> decision,
> but Yahoo doesn't actually seem as yucky as I first thought), which uses a
> number of bells and whistles for its basic service. I had been playing
> around
> with its blog function, and later decided to disable it after making a few
> entries to see how it worked (the blog is not necessary for the website).
>
> I noticed when I disabled the blog, the files I created were still
> visible. In
> the blog directory were files called "index.html" and "index.xml", plus
> some
> accessory files (javascript, small graphics files, etc). I decided to
> delete
> index.html. I created a zero-length index.html file in its place
> (intending to
> examine the other files to see what their purpose was). When I tested it,
> I saw
> the file again as if I hadn't deleted it (I cleared the cache on my
> browser). I
> clicked on "index.xml", and it came out on my browser as a fairly nicely-
> formatted webpage. I clicked on my zero-length index.html file, and the
> same
> content came up, except with minimal formatting (times roman, black on
> white).
>
> My question is: how is it that I can click on a zero-length HTML file --
> an
> empty file -- and it still is served to me as a web page with any content
> at
> all?


I'm guessing that when you created the zero length index.html, Yahoo's
upload code probably said, "Silly user .. he doesn't really mean to do that"
and ignored the change. Obviously, you can't get a nicely formatted web page
from a zero length file. :)

-- 
Alex Beamish
Toronto, Ontario
aka talexb
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