Http Client does not fix incorrect content-lenght headers

• Key: HTTPCLIENT-600
• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Invalid
• Priority: Major
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Denis Valdenaire
• Component/s: HttpClient
• Affects Version/s: 3.1 Alpha 1

Description

I discovered that the method

addContentLengthRequestHeader (found in file methods/MultipartPostMethod.java) doesn't "fix" the content-lenght when this one is incorrect. It adds one if getRequestHeader("Content-Lenght") is null, but it should also verify that the content-lenght is correct.

I suggest something like :

long len = getRequestContentLength();
if (getRequestHeader("Content-Length") == null || getRequestHeader("Content-Length") != len) {
            setRequestHeader("Content-Length", String.valueOf(len));
}

Sending an incorrect Content-Length blocks the server if the string sent is smaller than announced : waiting for more, and finally reset the connection. If it's too big, you lose data.

I've seen this problem in a reverse proxy program (with httpclient communicating with the real servers) when the client send urlencoded data and this data is modified (partly urldecoded) but not the content-lenght.