If-Unmodified-Since
The HTTP If-Unmodified-Since
request header makes the request for the resource conditional.
The server will send the requested resource (or accept it in the case of a POST
or another non-safe method) only if the resource on the server has not been modified after the date in the request header.
If the resource has been modified after the specified date, the response will be a 412 Precondition Failed
error.
The If-Unmodified-Since
header is commonly used in the following situations:
- In conjunction with non-safe methods like
POST
, this header can be used to implement an optimistic concurrency control, as is done by some wikis: revision are rejected if the stored document has been modified since the original was retrieved, avoiding conflicts. - In conjunction with a range request using the
Range
header, this header can be used to ensure that the new fragment requested comes from an unmodified document.
Header type | Request header |
---|---|
Forbidden header name | No |
Syntax
If-Unmodified-Since: <day-name>, <day> <month> <year> <hour>:<minute>:<second> GMT
Directives
<day-name>
-
One of "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat", or "Sun" (case-sensitive).
<day>
-
2 digit day number, e.g., "04" or "23".
<month>
-
One of "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" (case-sensitive).
<year>
-
4 digit year number, e.g. "1990" or "2016".
<hour>
-
2 digit hour number, e.g. "09" or "23".
<minute>
-
2 digit minute number, e.g. "04" or "59".
<second>
-
2 digit second number, e.g. "04" or "59".
- GMT
-
Greenwich Mean Time. HTTP dates are always expressed in GMT, never in local time.
Examples
If-Unmodified-Since: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 07:28:00 GMT
Specifications
Specification |
---|
HTTP Semantics # field.if-unmodified-since |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser
See also
- HTTP Conditional Requests guide
Last-Modified
If-Range
,Range
range request headersIf-Match
,If-Modified-Since
,If-None-Match
conditional request headers304 Not Modified
,412 Precondition Failed
response status codes