RE: Label behaviour...

Peter Raymond <Peter.Raymond@merant.com> wrote:
> Jim says:
>
> >Your are correct on the distinction between adding and setting a label.
> >Its there to avoid inadvertant reuse of a label. See the precondition
for
> >DAV:must-be-new-label. This indicates that for DAV:add, the label MUST
NOT
> >currently select a version. The postconditions for add and set are the
> >same.
>
> OK, I am happy that it is clear how DAV:add should behave, but I think
the
> spec needs more detail on how DAV:set behaves, does it:
>
> a) "move" the label, eg if it is already used by another version of the
> resource it will be removed from that version and added to the version
> indicated by the LABEL request.

I have no problem with spelling this out in the spec.

> or
>
> b) Allow the same label on multiple versions of the same resource?

I think this is already clear.  From Section 8:
"A given version label can be assigned to at most one version of a given
version history, but client assigned labels can be reassigned to another
version at any time.  Note that although a given label can be applied to at
most one version from the same version history, the same label can be
applied to versions from different version histories. "

> Jim says:
>
> >I don't know what you mean by "the labels that are in use". Do you mean
> >the intersection of all labels on all resources? If so, why would you
need
> >this?
>
> I want a pulldown list of currently in use (intersection of all labels on
> all resources) so the user can pick a label.  Obviously the user needs
the
> ability to enter one that does not already exist but seeing the list of
> existing ones will help in several use-case scenarios, eg:

The question is what do you mean by "all resources"?  Since the
deltav-compliant resources may be managed by many overlapping servers (with
holes created by non-deltav compliant resources), and distributed servers,
it is unlikely that "all resources" is very meaningful.

> Imagine user Fred goes to his WebDAV client to do some work on a set of
> source code, his colleague has told him by word of mouth etc that he
should
> use a label called "Special Label 1".  When he uses the WebDAV client he
> could put in any old label, eg "Special-Label-1" or "SpecialLabel1" etc,
he
> could enter a different label from the one all the other developers have
> been using.

Give Fred a Post-It <g>

> Another scenario is that you want to create a new label with a similar
> naming scheme from other labels already in the system, for example a
> project is under QA testing and all the versions of source under test
> have been marked with a label called "System Test Build 1".  Now a user
> wants to mark code using a label to indicate versions of code for use
> in the next system test.  Without being able to see that the label
> "System Test Build 1" was used previously the user might choose to call
> this new label "QA Build 2".
>
> I guess what I am getting at is that by providing a list of labels
already
> in use you can cut down on mistakes and the proliferation of similar
label
> names.
>
> What do other people think, any client writers out there that want to
> provide a list of existing labels?

I understand your point, but I don't see the value for such an unbounded
query.  I stand to be corrected.

Regards,
Tim

Received on Wednesday, 11 July 2001 06:41:05 UTC