RE: What is a supported property?

   From: Stefan Eissing [mailto:stefan.eissing@greenbytes.de]

   All this resourcetype and state thing aside:
   What is a supported property?

Excellent question!  This should be made clearer in the spec.
How about the following:

-------------

3.1.3	DAV:supported-method-set (protected)

This property identifies the methods that are supported by the
resource.  A method is supported by a resource if an application of
that method to that resource has the semantics defined for that
method by the features supported by that resource.

3.1.4	DAV:supported-live-property-set (protected)

This property identifies the live properties that are supported by
the resource.  A live property is supported by a resource if that
property has the semantics defined for that property by the
features supported by that resource.

-------------

OK, now let's see how these definitions hold up under
the rest of this message.

   A resource has properties, let's call these existing properties,
   which might or might not have values. But when a client does
   a PROPFIND on them, he will get them listed in a propstat
   element with 200 OK status code. I think that is a good definition
   of an "existing property of a resource".

Yup.

   Now, every existing property would also be a supported property
   and, being live, would appear in the supported-live-property-set.
   Ok.

If the server complies with the protocol, yes, this is true.

   Now Geoff mentioned that a VCR with in-place editing would have
   both DAV:checked-in and DAV:checked-out as supported properties,
   and that independant of the checked in/out state of the resource!

Yes.

   Now, here I became confused, since it means that not every supported
   property is an existing property! 

Your DAV:checked-in and DAV:checked-out is a good example.
Only one of those properties can exist on a version-controlled
resource, but both of them are supported.

   If we define supported properties with: 
           a property which will exist, when a method is applied
successfully
   then all non-versioned resources will have the DAV:checked-in as
   supported property, since you can apply VERSION-CONTROL. So, that
   does not seem to be a good definition...

No, I like mine much better (:-).

   And what about supported methods? Is CHECKIN a supported method for
   a checked-in resource, too? It will fail all the time...

Whether or not a resource is "checked-in" can change over time.
While it is checked-in, the CHECKIN request will fail, but while
it is checked-out, the CHECKIN request might succeed (unless
prevented by insufficient privileges or whatever).

Cheers,
Geoff

Received on Friday, 22 June 2001 13:58:09 UTC