Re: PROPFIND instead of REPORT (was Re: Minutes Delta-V breakout meeting 14-Dec-00)

I find that using PROPFIND rather than REPORT is a big bogus. I'm not
necessarily asking for properties. I'm asking for information from the
server. Is a compare-report a set of *properties* ?? Not in my mind.

For Subversion, I'm also going to be using a custom report. The client will
send to the server a representation of the client state. The server will
return a report saying something to the effect of, "that tree is out of
date; that file is an older version, but is equivalent to the latest; those
files are fine; etc"

That isn't a PROPFIND :-)

Cheers,
-g

On Mon, Dec 18, 2000 at 12:49:31AM -0500, Geoffrey M. Clemm wrote:
> 
> At the recent IETF meeting, JimA proposed that we use PROPFIND instead
> of REPORT to obtain information from the server that requires
> arguments to qualify what kind of information is required.  Although
> an appealing thought, after mulling this over, I don't see how we
> could do this in a way that is compatible with PROPFIND but
> does not violate the property value DTD's.
> 
> Jim's recent post describing a request of this kind doesn't really work:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
>   <propfind xmlns="DAV:">
>     <prop>
>          <creator-displayname/> 
>               <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>          <checkin-date/>
>              <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>     </prop>
>   </propfind>
> 
> If you indent this consistently, it becomes:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
>   <propfind xmlns="DAV:">
>     <prop>
>          <creator-displayname/> 
>          <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>          <checkin-date/>
>          <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>     </prop>
>   </propfind>
> 
> which seems to be a request for creator-displayname, checkin-date, and
> a repeated request for a property named "D:versions" (I'm assuming
> that all elements should have been prefixed by "D:").
> 
> Based on his original indentation, JimA probably meant:
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
>   <D:propfind xmlns="DAV:">
>     <D:prop>
>          <D:creator-displayname> 
>            <D:versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>          </D:creator-displayname>
>          <D:checkin-date>
>            <D:versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>          </D:checkin-date>
>     </D:prop>
>   </D:propfind>
> 
> But now we've violated the DTD's for D:checkin-date and
> D:creator-displayname (which are supposed to be either empty or
> dates and strings, respectively, to display to the user).
> 
> Currently, I think the avoidance of DTD ambiguity is worth
> the introduction of a new method (i.e. REPORT).
> 
> Cheers,
> Geoff
> 
>    From: "Lisa Dusseault" <lisa@xythos.com>
>    Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 16:33:44 -0800
> 
>    I'm afraid I'm a little confused, perhaps it's just the indenting.  Is
>    the <versions> tag supposed to be inside each the property name tags, or
>    parallel to them?  
> 
>    I'd suggest one only needs one <versions> tag per PROPFIND body, because
>    it's pretty nonsensical to ask for one property over 5 versions, and a
>    different property over 50 versions, all in one request. the client is
>    more likely to make separate requests.
> 
>    Another suggestion is to reuse the "range" syntax and logic (e.g.
>    byte-range headers).  This allows a "last-n" selection, as well as "m
>    through n" or "first n".  Then we don't need to define custom syntax or
>    logic to pick which versions to show.
> 
>    The basic idea, I think, is sound.
> 
>    lisa
> 
>    -----Original Message-----
>    From: ietf-dav-versioning-request@w3.org
>    [mailto:ietf-dav-versioning-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jim Amsden
>    Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2000 7:26 AM
>    To: ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
>    Subject: RE: Minutes Delta-V breakout meeting 14-Dec-00
> 
> 
>    <lisa> 
>    Hmm, this really argues for using PROPFIND since the client can say what
>    props they want for the version.  Perhaps instead of using attributes in
>    the
>    body of PROPFIND request (I never really understood where they would go)
>    there could just be an XML element to tell the server whether the client
>    wanted version detail or not:
> 
>    PROPFIND thisresource
> 
>    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
>      <propfind xmlns="DAV:">
>        <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>        <prop>
> 	    <creator-displayname/>
> 	    <checkin-date/>
>        </prop>
>      </propfind>
>    </lisa> 
>    <jra>Lisa, here's what we were planning: 
> 
>    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
>      <propfind xmlns="DAV:">
>        <prop>
> 	    <creator-displayname/> 
> 		 <versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
> 	    <checkin-date/>
> 		<versions>show-last-five</D:versions>
>        </prop>
>      </propfind>
> 
>    This is more compatible with 2518. 
> 

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

Received on Monday, 18 December 2000 03:10:32 UTC