Re: Ambiguity between SPARQL 1.1 RDF protocol query via GET and SD retrieval

On Oct 6, 2012, at 1:07 PM, Chime Ogbuji wrote:

> While porting over my implementation of the SPARQL 1.1 RDF protocol, I noticed that the language in the Service Description specification about how a service description document is dereferenced is a bit ambiguous.
> 
> "SPARQL services made available via the SPARQL Protocol should return a service description document at the service endpoint when dereferenced using the HTTP GET operation" 
> 
> Whereas the SPARQL 1.1 RDF Protocol document says:
> 
> "Protocol clients may send protocol requests via the HTTP GET method. When using the GET method, clients must URL percent encode (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt) all parameters and include them as query parameter (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt) strings with the names given above"
> 
> Under the query string parameters column for this binding it says: "query (exactly 1)". 
> 
> Unless I've missed text elsewhere that clarifies this, reading both as they are written begs the question about whether a query via GET binding request SHOULD return an SD document. My assumption is that the distinction is between a GET request to the service endpoint *without* a query parameter versus a request *with* this parameter - returning an SD document if the query parameter is not provided.
> 
> This distinction should be made explicit. Some suggested text (in SD specification):
> 
> "[...] should return a service description document at the service endpoint when dereferenced using the HTTP GET operation without any query parameter strings provided"

I agree that the language here could be made better by being more specific. In looking this over, I also noticed that the terminology between the two documents has drifted a bit (which is a bit embarrassing since I edited both). SD says:

"""
A SPARQL [Protocol] service is commonly referred to as a "SPARQL endpoint".
"""

while Protocol has two different definitions for "Service" and "Endpoint":

"""
SPARQL Protocol service
An HTTP server that services HTTP requests and sends back HTTP responses for SPARQL Protocol operations. The URI at which a SPARQL Protocol service listens for requests is generally known as a SPARQL endpoint. (Also known as: service)

SPARQL endpoint
The URI at which a SPARQL Protocol service listens for requests from SPARQL Protocol clients.
"""

Does anyone (esp. chairs) think fixing this before the upcoming publication would be a problem (or perhaps it's something that could be fixed post-publication)? I don't think fixing this is a substantive change as I believe the spec text, examples, and tests are all pretty clear about what is meant, but certainly don't want to cause problems for anyone who thinks otherwise.

thanks,
.greg

Received on Monday, 8 October 2012 16:40:57 UTC