Re: Proposal for dealing with issue 200: SOAPAction header vs. action parameter

Henrik,

On Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at 09:13:09AM -0700, Henrik Frystyk Nielsen wrote:
> 1) Should we both have a SOAPAction header field *and* an
> "application/soap+xml" media type "action" parameter?
> 
> 2) Given the discussion of issue 197 [3], what happens if the media type
> is *not* "application/xml+soap" (either directly or indirectly in some
> nested manner)? 
> 
> 3) We have a general issue with the dependency between the SOAP 1.2 spec
> and the media type draft. I consider this an editorial issue but it
> should be made clear.
> 
> 4) Where can I find the resolution text for what SOAPAction header field
> means?
> 
> Proposal
> --------
> 
> 1) I would say that we should only have it in one place and like the
> direction of moving it entirely into the media type definition as a
> parameter.

Agreed.

> 2) This is the trickiest part - one of the important reasons for having
> a known content type is to indicate that *this* is a SOAP message. If
> two parties are not using a known content type then that information
> clearly is not there anymore. I can think of two ways to go:
> 
> 2.A) We leave it entirely up to the media type being used to indicate in
> some manner that this is a SOAP message.
> 
> 2.B) We maintain the SOAPAction in some manner (for example in an
> appendix) that allows is to be used with content types other than
> "application/soap+xml" indicating that this is a SOAP message.

Right.

I don't believe that we can rule out 2A in the future, so I think the
answer is both.  For now, IMO that means taking action on 2B to soften
up the wording about recommending that SOAPAction not be required.

> 3) The spec editors should add a note to the spec that we know that this
> is an ID with no standing.

I guess that will suffice for last call.  We should revisit later.

> 4) This was carefully put together as the resolution [6] of issue 95
> [5]. While some of the details regarding the status codes used will be
> changed slightly as a result of it being a media-type parameter, and
> that its value can't be relative, the overall resolution still stands.

Thanks!  I'll incorporate that.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, Chief Science Officer, Planetfred, Inc.
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.      mbaker@planetfred.com
http://www.markbaker.ca   http://www.planetfred.com

Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2002 21:24:09 UTC