RE: WebDAV Bindings - Issue Yaron.AtomicDelete

> This is a bookkeeping issue.  Remember, the DELETE is not an 
> allocation
> issue.  It's removing the resource out of one or more places in the
> namespace and that's the only verifiable semantic that we can 
> talk about.
> We've tried.  Whether the resource continues to exist after 
> it loses its
> last binding is up to the server.

That's the key point here.  On a direct-mapped webserver (no alias support
in the webserver) that uses a singly-linked filesystem like VMS or
Win32API-NTFS as a WebDAV backing store, it may make sense for the DELETE to
actually remove the underlying file.  If you are using a direct-mapped
webserver on a multiply-linked filesystem like Unix or POSIXsubsystem-NTFS,
then a DELETE might remove one link to the underlying file but leave any
other links lying around.  I could go on and on enumerating the various
possibilities, but to me the DELETE only removes the name from the namespace
-- it is entirely server-dependent as to what if anything happens to the
underlying data for that name.  From the client's viewpoint, that name and
its data doesn't exist anymore.
===============================================
Mark Leighton Fisher            fisherm@tce.com
Thomson Consumer Electronics    Indianapolis IN
"Browser Torture Specialist, First Class"

Received on Wednesday, 19 January 2000 12:41:47 UTC