RE: I-D ACTION:draft-nottingham-http-link-header-01.txt

I wrote:
> I think a better alternative to a single "Link" header is to define a
> standard for multiple Link-like headers:
> 
> [Relation]-Links: #(URI-Reference LWS *(; param=value LWS))
> 
> For example, an "edit" link would be:
> 
> Edit-Links: http://foo.org

I want to add two more things.

1. When the PATCH proposal was being discussed, Roy (I think) made the good
point that PATCH should be able to modify the HTTP headers for the resource,
along with the representation(s). That would make PATCH nearly a superset of
the functionality LINK/UNLINK methods, so that LINK/UNLINK would not be
necessary. I can see how PATCH could implement the equivalent of
mod_headers's "unset" and "set" but I doubt it will be able to edit headers
in a more fine-grained manner without making PATCH unnecessarily complex.
Having separate header fields for each type of link will allow easier
editing with PUT and PATCH.

2. Having separate header fields for each link relation will also allow us
to independently designate each link relation as being specific to the
entity, resource, or request being processed. It seems to me that the "Link"
header only makes sense as an entity header.

- Brian

Received on Monday, 28 April 2008 04:04:36 UTC