Most of the public json data files have dates in them that show when the raw data was last updated. The files themselves are only replaced when the data in them changes, so the If-Modified-Since check works properly.
Now some data sources change quite infrequently, so it can be hard to determine of the file really is up to date or the cron job has not been run recently. There are public log files, however these would need to be analysed to determine if the job completed OK, and even an empty file could be associated with a failed job if the error was not caught and logged - i.e. it only went to stderr] Possible solutions might be: - scripts add a standard entry to each log file on successful completion. This could include the start and end times of the job. Quite simple to implement, but a bit awkward to use. - scripts update a shared json file on successful completion. More care needed to implement (locking needed), but much easier to use. Thoughts?
