Use of a CSS stylesheet url with parameters

Question

What are the parameters in a stylesheet uri used for? For instance, Dell's main page has this link with three parameters:

<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="http://www-cdn.dell.com/content/public/css.aspx?c=us&l=en&~set=storm81_hp">

I know that a single parameter when changed can be used to force browser to re-fetch the stylesheet. Eg:

eg: http://sstatic.net/stackoverflow/all.css?v=a6754691e23a

but the Dell link is obviously aiming at sending the params back to the server for processing. Is this used to select a specific version of a stylesheet? In that case why not send the targeted stylesheet in the first place?

Wondering...

davidosomething · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-06 05:51:27Z

6

they're using a script to generate their CSS file so the file is not a static .css file

basically the serverside behind the aspx file (could be C# or VB.net) outputs as mimetype text/css

answered Dec 6, 2010 at 5:51

davidosomething

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Comments

thedom · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-06 05:53:52Z

2

Looks like Dell has specific CSS stylesheets for different countries. It seams like they are parsing the country (with c=us), the language (with l=en) and a theme (with ~set=storm81_hp).

This request gets parsed by the server and the server returns a stylesheet based on the params.

answered Dec 6, 2010 at 5:53

thedom

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3 Comments

Bernard Over a year ago

Sorry but that doesn't answer the question. I believe davidosomething has the best answer so far (the stylesheet is not static but generated).

thedom Over a year ago

@Alkaline: I think this IS the answer. You asked wether Dell sends this params to the server. You do! You are loading the CSS (your browser). It doesn't matter how much params you are setting but those 3 params mentioned above seem to be necessary/reasonable.

kobe Over a year ago

@alkainer , i responsed above , its a asp.net page which is generating css content based on countrycode, language and some other parameter, some websites layout changes based upon the language as, german strings will be too long than englist etc

kobe · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-06 06:27:14Z

0

Alkaine,

The version no is mainly used to take care of browser caching issues. For example if you have a website with version no www.example.com/css/global.css?v=1 and you make some changes to the file and deployed again.

When you deploy the file agian , you will change the version no to something else like this

www.example.com/css/global.css?v=2 so that when the enduser request for this file he will get new css file from the server instead of the one from browser.

If you don't change the version no , the end customer always sees the old global.css untill he refresh his cache or clear his cache from the browser.

This is one of reason why people uses version no css or js files

let me know if you need anything else

answered Dec 6, 2010 at 6:27

kobe

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4 Comments

Bernard Over a year ago

As I wrote above (please read carefully), I already know that. The question is about passing multiple parameters aimed at the server on the way back, not the browser.

kobe Over a year ago

@alkainer , based on the url querystring there might be some if else condition which generates the css back , he is setting the country and language and some other variable in the url , based on that he is generating the css

kobe Over a year ago

execute this url directly the resonse of that .aspx page is css file www-cdn.dell.com/content/public/…

kobe Over a year ago

@alkainer , i definetly think the querystring values are used for decision making// change the countrycode and language and see if it generates another css file

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