Question

I would like to POST an entity as follows

POST /example.org/MyEntity/100

Based on the passed entity, the server would like to draw the users attention to a particular part of the response using a fragment identifier. e.g.

/example.org/MyEntity/100#InterestingPart

How do I return this new URL to the client. I am assuming I could do some form of redirect using a 3XX response code, but I actually do not want the client to do another request because the only difference between the two URLs is the fragment. At the moment it seems that a 307 return code would be the most appropriate because according to the spec you should not automatically redirect a POST.

Is there are better way?

Update: My client is not limited to the constraints of a web browser. I am just looking at this from the perspective of HTTP.

Update2: Based on my reading of RFC2616, I can see nothing stopping me from returning a 200 and a Location header that contains the fragment identifier. Anyone know of a reason why I cannot do that?

Answer 1

I think the only sensible solution is to have action URL have static fragment identifier, like <form method="post" action="/action#anchored"> and then put an anchor wherever you want user to look at while generating page.

But, to answer the Update2: no, there’s no reason to avoid it.