Re: [XML-URI] HTTP extensions framework comparison

> The Http Extensions Framework (RFC 2774) has an identification
> mechanism similar to XML Namespaces. It also uses URIs as
> identifiers and might also be vulnerable to some of the same
> issues. It specifies absolute URIs only (so it's avoided one
> of our problems), but, unfortunately, it hasn't specified any
> URI comparison mechanism, so the canonicalization issues
> remain.
>
> See,
>
>   ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2774.txt

You are right that it is very similar in intent but as you say, HTTP-EF
doesn't allow relative URIs and it is certainly the intent that it uses
the comparison algorithm described in the HTTP/1.1 spec, see

    http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html#sec3.2.3

The reason why it here makes sense to not allow relative URIs is that all
URIs exported by a Web server by definition are absolute - even in the
weird case of the "*" request-URI. There is therefore always an explicit
base URI which both parties (client and server) in the communication know.

Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
mailto:frystyk@microsoft.com