PATCH draft

Just a general FYI... I have prepared another update to the PATCH draft
based on the feedback discussed here on the list.  It did not get sent
off in time for the cutoff so it likely will not post until sometime
after the 23rd.  Until it does publish, I wanted to at least give a
heads up that a new draft was coming.

Some of the changes that have been applied include:

  * Terminology change from "delta encoding" to "patch document"

  * Added clarification on the safety and idempotency of PATCH

  * PATCH responses are not cacheable "unless the response includes
    appropriate Cache-Control or Expires header fields"

  * 200 responses MUST include a representation of the modified
    resource. 204 responses are used to indicate successful response
    without returning a representation.

  * Suggest using 422 Unprocessable Entity to indicate that a properly
    formatted patch document cannot be processed

  * Clarify the use of 412 and 409 to indicate concurrent and
    conflicting resource modifications.

  * Added registration for the Accept-Patch header.

  * Relaxed the requirements for the use of If-Match and If-Unmodified-
    Since.

  * Add language that clarifies the difference between PUT and PATCH.

  * Remove the restriction against creating new resources with PATCH

  * Add language that clarifies the issues with PATCH and Content
    Negotiation.

  * Use of Accept-Patch on any response implies that PATCH is supported.

  * Add language advising caution when pipelining PATCH requests.

- James

p.s. I cross posted this to two mailing lists. My apologies to those of
you who receive multiple copies.

Received on Thursday, 12 July 2007 16:11:45 UTC