# Cached PERL programs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cached-perl-programs/108377>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 10, 2002, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cached-perl-programs/108377 "2002-05-10T21:29:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cached-perl-programs/108377/1 "2002-05-10T21:29:14Z")

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I wrote a bunch of programs to be used as a shopping cart for a customer of mine. It seems to work fine most of the time, but there is apparently a small problem. When a customer adds an item to their shopping a program adds writes the necessary data to a file and then refers the browser to a program that displays the current contents of the shopping cart. The problem is that some customers are getting a cached version of their cart and have to click refresh to see the updated version after they add an item. I have never experienced this problem directly and know nothing of the browser version or settings of the people having this problem.

Is there any way to force a browser to display the current version of a page?

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cached-perl-programs/108377/2 "2002-05-10T22:30:20Z")

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Have your script send a

```auto

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">

```

In the head section of your HTML, or send the equivelant HTTP header if you prefer to do it that way.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cached-perl-programs/108377/3 "2002-05-10T22:38:59Z")

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That is exactly what I discovered in my web search, but thank you for taking the time to reply.