label header (was: Re: Versioning TeleConf Agenda, 4/6/01 (Friday) 12-1pm EST)

On Sun, Apr 08, 2001 at 12:04:06AM -0400, Clemm, Geoff wrote:
>...
>    - defer label header, but keep LABEL method
> 
> Example of reason why you don't want human meaningful strings in a
> header:  The Label value needs to be matched against values stored 
> on the server.  For some languages, the encoding is not enough to
> decide whether or not there is a match ... you need something like
> a language attribute.  With labels in XML, that's no problem ... you
> add the language information as an optional element or attribute.
> With a header, there is no good way to provide this info.
> 
> Consensus of con-call: Label header can be removed.

I was talking about this with somebody yesterday. I don't see the argument
at all. Please give an example where a Label needs a language to resolve
properly.

As I see it, we compare the (character) encoded string against those on the
server. "le" and "le" are exactly the same whether the language is French or
English.

By suggesting that there is some language component in there, you are then
stating that the comparison function on the server must account for
language. That just doesn't seem right. The logical mechanism is to convert
the Label: header value into Unicode and compare that to all the labels
stored on the server (which are also stored as Unicode).

Unless/until somebody can come up with an example of a string that is
encoded the same, but interpreted differently based on language, *and* argue
the expectation that the server should treat that string/language pair
differently... then I might agree to dropping the Label header.

But until then, let's keep the Label header. Tossing it means we must
replace our PROPFINDs with some silly new report and an extra round trip.
Where is the benefit!?!

Finally... even if you can show a similarly-encoded string which needs to
also account for the language, then the Label header can simply look like:

  Label: my-label; language="en-us"

If we want to be anal about it:

  Label: my-label; language="en-us"; charset="iso-8859-1"

But the whole language thing seems like a red herring.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

Received on Tuesday, 10 April 2001 07:17:54 UTC