http - Why is Cache-Control attribute sent in request header (client to server)?

Question

After reading about the Cache-Control field of the HTTP header,

I understand that the Cache-Control field in the HTTP response header (server to client) specifies the directives for the intermediate proxy servers/client browser on how to handle the response, by sending different values for the Cache-Control field: private, public, no-cache, or no-store in the response header.

But I don't get why we need to send Cache-Control as a request header (client to server)?

Answer 1

Cache-Control: no-cache is generally used in a request header (sent from web browser to server) to force validation of the resource in the intermediate proxies. If the client doesn't send this request to the server, intermediate proxies will return a copy of the content if it is fresh (has not expired according to Expire or max-age fields). Cache-Control directs these proxies to revalidate the copy even if it is fresh.