Re: Allow: header and supported methods

Please excuse a newbie question:

Surely for a server looking after versioned resources, asking it
"What If?" questions based on its current state is a bit useless?

I mean, if I have a checked-out resource, and I don't have an
exclusive write-lock on the resource, then requests to the server
such as "If I try and commit, will I be able to?" can only
be usefully answered by the server with: "I don't know, unless
you try."

Is there a more subtle issue I'm missing?

Ben

On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 09:53:36AM +0100, Tim Ellison wrote:
> During the working group meeting we agreed to note this issue on the list:
> 
> What does the (HTTP/1.1 defined) Allow: header mean? and should it be the
> same as the (DeltaV defined) DAV:supported-method-set property?
> 
> The meeting attendees agreed that "allowed" and "supported" should mean the
> same thing, and concensus was that both should report methods that will
> succeed for some state of the resource, not necessarily the current state.
> 
> For example, a version-controlled resource can be checked-out or checked-in
> and therefore only one of CHECKOUT or CHECKIN will succeed for a given
> state of a version-controlled resource.  It is proposed that, for
> version-controlled resources, "Allow:" and "DAV:supported-method-set"
> include both CHECKIN and CHECKOUT (amongst others).
> 
> Send any objections to the list.
> 
> Regards,
> Tim
>

Received on Tuesday, 14 August 2001 07:46:09 UTC