RE: Interpreting RDF as representation of a resource?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Mark Baker [mailto:distobj@acm.org]
> Sent: 22 November, 2004 17:59
> To: Stickler Patrick (Nokia-TP-MSW/Tampere)
> Cc: www-rdf-interest@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Interpreting RDF as representation of a resource?
> 
> 
> Patrick,
> 
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 12:09:02PM +0200, 
> Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
> > It seems to me that there is no presently defined way to use POST
> > to submit a representation to a web authority, such that the web
> > authority would know based on the HTTP request that the content
> > body of the request consists of a representation.
> 
> As I see it, all data is a representation of the state of 
> some resource.

Perhaps. But is data submitted via POST always a representation
of the resource identified by the request URI? Perhaps it does.
I was presuming that it does not necessarily have to.

> > After all, that's what PUT is for.
> 
> PUT just prescribes that the provided representation is to be
> interpreted as a representation of the desired state of the resource
> identified in the HTTP request line.  It's not special in its ability
> to transfer representations.

Where I considered PUT differing from POST (and this may simply be
due to my own imperfect understanding of the specs) is that with PUT,
it is clear that the data is a representation of the resource identified
by the request URI; whereas with POST, it is not clear (to me at least)
that that is always the case.

> Consider that I could script a couple of HTTP messages that set the
> state of a lightbulb to the same state of some other lightbulb, but in
> the second message - the PUT request - the provided 
> representation is a
> representation of the state of the first lightbulb.  Not until the PUT
> request succeeds is it also a representation of the second bulb.

That seems to be inline with my understanding of PUT. Not sure if
you thought I was seeing things differently, insofar as PUT is concerned.

Patrick

Received on Tuesday, 23 November 2004 08:11:43 UTC