RE: OPTIONS

> Just go read S9.2 of RFC 2616: "... request for information ... on the
> request/response chain identified by the Request-URI." and "If the
> Request-URI is not an asterisk, ... applies only ... when
> communicating with
> that resource."
>

I concur -- it's pretty clear that OPTIONS in HTTP/1.1 is per-resource,
unless the Request-URI is "*".  It's fairly typical for Web servers to have
different capabilities in different parts of their namespace.

Note that this doesn't necessarily mean that a server must perform a query
for each OPTIONS request -- you could, for example, have OPTIONS code that
handles a portion of the namespace.  DeltaV could also add some constraints
as well, such as, if you support VERSION-CONTROL at one level of a namespace
hierarchy, all sub-collections also must support VERSION-CONTROL.  So, this
would allow clients to avoid sending some kinds of OPTIONS requests, if
efficiency is a concern.

- Jim

Received on Saturday, 17 February 2001 15:28:15 UTC