The Movie Database Support
Support → API Support
ETag and Append
posted by AdiSTAFFMOD on নভেম্বর 16, 2017 at 3:05 PM
This is just a suggestion which I don't expect will happen, due to the low priority of it, but it could be good for bandwidth.
Currently, if you request this URL:
http://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/25657
You get this ETag:
W/"29b21c33f5540e8be9ab71e728157422"
If you request the same film, but append to the response, various other information, like this:
http://api.themoviedb.org/3/movie/25657?append_to_response=alternative_titles,credits,images,keywords,releases,videos,similar
You get this ETag:
W/"29b21c33f5540e8be9ab71e728157422"
The same ETag.
Now, the method name says it all, you are taking the initial response and the initial ETag and appending to it.
That said, it would be nice if append did change the ETag.
Thus, when you request all the information, you can just do a HEAD call to get the ETag and see if it has changed, rather than having to download it all to check.
How many people actually do HEAD requests? Probably just me. Thus the low prioirty. It would be nice though! :P
Reply by Travis Bell
on মে 16, 2018 at 10:51 AM
Ya, it would be better if it supported building the Etag from a set of fields instead of the entire document. I am not sure how feasible that is but will look into it.
Sorry I haven't had time to look in to this yet, I've been busy with website things. This is the first thing I'll be looking at when I get time to work on the API but I haven't touched the API in a few weeks which is why this hasn't been looked at yet.
Reply by Adi
on মে 16, 2018 at 12:53 PM
No rush. I think the fact that it gets nobbled by Popularity generation kinda stops what I would be using it for.
That said, getting it working properly has to be a bonus caching wise for those doing regular calls.
Reply by Travis Bell
on ডিসেম্বর 31, 2019 at 10:21 AM
While I didn't go ahead and build conditional ETag's based on only a subset of fields like we were talking about,
append_to_responseis at least now generating it's own, proper ETag value. I also tweaked a few things for better 304 support.Reply by Adi
on জানুয়ারি 1, 2020 at 8:00 PM
What causes the popularity field to get updated?
Reply by Travis Bell
on জানুয়ারি 1, 2020 at 8:48 PM
Popularity is re-calculated every day. You can read more about how popularity is calculated here: https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/getting-started/popularity
Reply by Adi
on জানুয়ারি 2, 2020 at 10:14 AM
If the eTag didn't contain popularity, it would be a bonus. Since it changes everyday, the eTag doesn't help much there.
Reply by Travis Bell
on জানুয়ারি 6, 2020 at 5:27 PM
My newest implementation of this actually could make removing popularity value from the hash generation possible. Let me think on that.
Reply by Adi
on জানুয়ারি 7, 2020 at 9:46 AM
My thinking is: If someone votes on it or changes it, you want to know that. Since popularity is guaranteed to be updated/changed every day, it kinda invalidates the eTag for everything else and doesn't offer anything useful itself.