RE: SOAPAction Proposal

Hi Martin,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Gudgin [mailto:marting@develop.com]
> Sent: 06 May 2001 22:53
> To: Williams, Stuart
> Cc: XML Protocol Comments
> Subject: Re: SOAPAction Proposal
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Williams, Stuart" <skw@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
> To: "'Martin Gudgin'" <marting@develop.com>
> Cc: "XML Protocol Comments" <xml-dist-app@w3.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 4:31 PM
> Subject: RE: SOAPAction Proposal
> 
> 
> > Hi Martin,
> >
> > Just a question really. In a scenario that employs 
> > intermediaries, what are our expectations of the 
> > value carried in a SOAPAction header on each hop
> > in the path?
> 
> My expectation is that it would be the same at each hop ( i.e.
> intermediaries would not change it ).
> 
> >
> > a)  the SOAPAction header to carries the same
> >     value on each hop down the path?
> >
> >     Either fix or, as you suggest, a value dervied
> >     from the uri of the recipient and the
> >     fully qualified name of the first
> >     child of the body.
> >
> > b)  least the uri part of the SOAPAction uriref
> >     (before the #) to be based on the URI of
> >     the intermediary.
> >
> >     The part after the # might be derived as
> >     in a) or might be derived from the fully
> >     qualified name of some notion of a principal
> >     header targetted at that intermediary?
> >
> > c)  some other mechanism....
> 
> Err, I think I need examples to see where you are going...
> 
> Gudge

Firstly, I don't have a particularly strong view about this, but it seems to
me that if you have a SOAPAction value that's useful for filtering and and
dispatching at the ultimate destination of a SOAP Message, that same value
might be of less use for filtering and dispatching at, say, a signing
intermediary or a logging intermediary. Such an intermediary might be more
interested in filtering and dispatching on the basis of what it (the
intermediary) is being asked to do ie. a SOAPAction value related to the
'intent' of the intermediary.

Admittedly, changing the value of SOAPAction on on every hop to suit the
needs of the next recipient of the message does make life complicated... eg.
how do you know what the next value should be?

Maybe the SOAPAction header is of little/no value at an intermediary and it
is only intended to be useful to the ultimate recpient.

Regards

Stuart

Received on Tuesday, 8 May 2001 07:59:13 UTC