Can I use the HTTP range header to load partial files "on purpose"?

Question

I'm playing around with the HTTP range header (specs).

From what I understand I can set byte ranges of files ala

0-199/2000
200-499/2000
500-799/2000
etc

Question:
Say I only want to access certain ranges of a file, would it be possible to specify these ranges and then work with the "incomplete" data I received? I'm playing around with filtering a large log file, so I'm curious if something like this would work.

Thanks for inputs!

Answer 1

You are right, the link which you posted in the comment would be probably the best approach. As your question sounded interesting i tried it out. You probably did it, but here is an snippet (for other, that may come looking)

var xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlhttp.open("GET","data.dat",false);
xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Range", "bytes=100-200");
xmlhttp.send();
console.info(xmlhttp); //--> returns only the partial content
// Tested on Win7 with chrome 46+

Watch-out: the web-server has to support this Request Header Range, for this to work.