Last modified: 2009-12-30 05:19:25 UTC
When action=raw is used to retrieve the wikitext of an article, but no such article exists, MediaWiki should respond with HTTP error 404 "Not Found". Currently, it simply returns an empty text. Thus, there's no way for scripts to tell if a page does not exist, or if it is simply blank. If a HTML message should accompany the 404 code, or again an empty page, i'm not sure. The former is nicer if tried with a browser, the latter is better for backward compatibility with existing scripts. Returning 404 for non-existing pages *regardles* if action=raw is used or not should also be considered - but I expect there meight be issues with "smart" error pages in some "advanced" browsers. Not returning the 404 code if a nonexisting page is requested is actually against the HTTP spec, so I marked this as minor bug, rather than a feature request.
Possibly dupe this to bug 2585, or else cancel 2585 in favor of a raw-specific version.
"smart" error pages in some "advanced" browsers don't show if you provide a 404 page long enough. (or at least i have seen some 404 pages sending extra data to bypasss it for IE). Our article-doesn't exist is long enough i think ;) In any case, it needs browser-checking.
According to includes/RawPage.php, a 404 header *is* generated if the page can't be found.
It *does* return 404 on action=raw, so i mark this as fixed. There's bug 2585 for showing non-raw 404. I think we had some excuse but i don't remember...
