Next message: Tim Ellison OTT: "Re: DAV:revision-resourcetype"
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 13:03:48 -0500
Message-Id: <10001271803.AA29452@tantalum>
From: "Geoffrey M. Clemm" <geoffrey.clemm@rational.com>
To: ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
Subject: Re: DAV:revision-resourcetype
From: jamsden@us.ibm.com
<geoff>
The main use of DAV:revision-resourcetype is to tell the server how to
store the revisions of that versioned resource. For a simple
resourcetype (like text/xml), there might be several "storage types"
(e.g. compressed, text-delta, binary-delta).
</geoff>
<jra>
Why does the protocol ever have to deal with this? Can't the server store
the bits any way it wants? The protocol should only be concerned with how
the bits are communicated over the wire. The Accept* headers support this
requirement. Servers have to be prepared to translate text into character
sets requested by clients. To do this, they may choose to store the text in
a canonical form efficient for their use and translate on request.
</jra>
The server often cannot guess what the appropriate storage format will
be, based only on the first revision. For example, a choice between
compressed and text-delta depends on how big the revisions in general
will be, and how much stays the same from revision to revision. On
the other hand, the user often can predict what this behavior is
likely to be, and could indicate this to the server if it was
permitted to do so by the protocol.
Cheers,
Geoff