Re: PATCH thoughts...

Would it solve all these use cases if we provided a "Source: <url>" 
header?  The job of the server is then to take the Source resource, 
apply the patch body, and save it at the destination (the request URI). 
  I'd probably define this so that if the Source header were missing, 
then the Request URI is both the source and the destination.

Would anybody else find this useful?

Bear in mind that I'm not trying to solve all use cases.  Narrow use 
cases are a great thing to actually make progress and get to standard.  
This may be one of the situations where it's pretty safe to extend the 
use cases and functionality but we'll see.

lisa

On Apr 28, 2004, at 2:45 PM, Justin Chapweske wrote:

> Hello Lisa,
>
> The PATCH proposal is interesting and well designed for the task at
> hand.  A couple of thoughts:
>
> o I'm concerned that the provided use cases for PATCH is a bit too
> narrow and the system may not be flexible enough to encompass future 
> use
> cases.
>
> For example, it may be desirable to create a new file that is the
> combination of the PATCH request body and a totally different resource,
> rather than patching a file in place.
>
> Another possible use case is that it may be desirable to have the patch
> body retrieved from a third-party URI rather than embedded directly in
> the request.
>
> Of course, at a quick blush you could simply say that these cases are
> out of scope.  But, I think it is worth thinking deeper about the
> problem space to see if an even more generic solution doesn't arise.
>
> o Secondly, I would like to see PATCH advocate at least one generic
> binary delta format.  Unless I am mistaken, gdiff is only useful for
> text documents.
>
> Thanks for your time and effort in writing this document.
>
> -Justin
>

Received on Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:21:17 UTC