- From: Chris Newman <Chris.Newman@innosoft.com>
- Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 10:19:44 -0800 (PST)
- To: IETF URI list <uri@bunyip.com>
On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Roy T. Fielding wrote: > My opinion is that I would like to see a need for this change before > trying to make it a standard. In other words, I have yet to see a > compelling application espoused that would require the use of unordered > attribute-value pairs within a URL-using application, other than FORMs > entry which already has a different syntax. Combining that with the > inability to use such a feature until all current software is upgraded, > my current opinion is that we should not make the change. Specific example: IMAP URLs. Folder names in IMAP are hierarchical. In addition, IMAP has the ability to fetch messages and MIME parts of messages in a folder. The basic syntax for a section of a message is currently: imap://<hostport>/<folder-path>;UID=<message uid>;SECTION=1.2 Now if I take a relative URL of ";SECTION=1.3" to refer to a different MIME section of the same message, the only reasonable resolution is: imap://<hostport>/<folder-path>;UID=<message uid>;SECTION=1.3 Note that having a "SECTION" without a "UID" is meaningless. UID can't be included in the folder-path because that would make it ambiguous since folder-path can include "/". Because IMAP support needs to be deployed before this URL scheme is implemented anyway, I simply wrote this in as an exception to the current rules. I don't like exceptions, but applying the current rules results in nonsense. Now if the rules were updated, the exception wouldn't be necessary.
Received on Tuesday, 4 February 1997 13:19:21 UTC