RE: Collections

At 01:02 PM 9/19/97 +0200, you wrote:
>To repeat a comment from Orem, we need to be clear about whether every URI
>hierarchy will behave like a collection, or only collections that were
>created using MKCOL.  This has lots of implications, especially once
>recursive operations are defined for collections.  Will those recursive
>operations (MOVE, COPY, LOCK, etc.) work for all URI hierarchies, or only
>for collections created with MKCOL?  A user can only figure out where he
>wants to MOVE or COPY a resource if he can see the context he's operating
>in.  We've made a stab at providing this with INDEX, but will it work for
>all URI hierarchies, or only for collections created with MKCOL?  etc.
>[Dylan Barrell]  
>I think that every hierarchy level should be treated as a collection for
two reasons
>
>1. It obviates the need for some additional methods to map collection
members to hierarchy
>2. It would allow servers to be upgraded (in fact it would force WebDAV
server implementors to take care of this in their installation scripts) to
make use the new WebDAV capabilities without having to retrofit the
documents and hierarchies already present.

If the the whole hierarchy is not treated as a collection, you leave open
the possibility of some user confusion.  The namespaces of the URLs and the
collections overlap, but are not identical.  For example, if you have
collection /A you could have /A/B where B is an internal reference and /A/C
where C is not part of the collection, simply part of the URL space.  This
might be useful, but it will certainly be confusing.

John Turner
johnt@cgocable.net

Received on Friday, 19 September 1997 11:48:53 UTC