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

                  "
Take the word 'schon' in German, which can also be spelled
'schoen'.  There is a convention that specifies that umlauts can
be replaced by a following "e" and still be the same word.  It is
not the case that binary comparisons can be done even for equality
for natural language strings.

However, your point is still valid--I thought the reasons to get
rid of the Label header were:

* make label just a property and remove an option, simplifying
  the client testing problem
* shorten the spec
* nobody at the working group cared that much about the header
* avoid the language pain in the a** with respect to internationalizing
	the header

The language issue isn't sufficient by itself.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf-dav-versioning-request@w3.org
> [mailto:ietf-dav-versioning-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Greg Stein
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 4:20 AM
> To: 'ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org'
> Subject: 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 12:52:30 UTC