Re: MKCOL for making collections

On 1/22/13 10:53 AM, Henry Story wrote:
> On 22 Jan 2013, at 16:35, Alexandre Bertails <bertails@w3.org> wrote:
>
>> On 01/22/2013 10:17 AM, Steve Speicher wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote:
>>>> ISSUE-36: Can applications create new containers?
>>>>
>>>> We cannot make a collection by POSTing a doument on a collection, since that
>>>> creates a resource. We therefore would need a different HTTP Method to do this.
>>>>
>>> Why can't we do this?  A Container/Collection IS a resource.  So
>>> therefore POST'ing the representation of it seems like the most
>>> obvious way to create one.
>> I agree with Henry's premises: this way of creating containers should
>> be discussed. The reason is that this strategy forces you to look into
>> each RDF document that is POSTed, to search for the triples saying
>> "hey, by the way, I'm an LDPC!".
>>
>> It's not that it's impossible, it's just very annoying in practice. So
>> it's at least not perfect.
> Thanks :-) I was just writing this up.
>
> Next interesting enough would be the question as to whether a link would
> do to a special resource for creating a collection in your collection.
> You could have
>
> <> ldp:createCollection <xxx> .
>
> But now what is xxx ? It cannot be something you can add attributes to
> like <xxx?name=pix> to create a collection and that then you can send
> a GET to. Because GET is indempotent and you'd be in danger of crawlers
> creating collections all over the place.
>
> If is something you POST to to create a collection, then is it not
> an ldp:Container? But if it is an ldp:Container then it's a bit odd
> that you are POSTing to another ldp:Container, in order to create a
> new container in your collection.
>
> My guess is that it is reasoning of that type that led to the creation
> of the MKCOL method.

Yes, some history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV#History .


Kingsley
>   
>
>> Alexandre.
>>
>>>> I suggest MKCOL from WebDAV, since it is already defined.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     http://restpatterns.org/HTTP_Methods/MKCOL
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The content of the body, could be Triples that describe things
>>>> that can be put into the collection. As it happens that is not
>>>> defined yet it seems, so we can define it.
>>>>
>>>>    Any thoughts on that?  I'll try implementing that.
>>>>
>>> Seems like we'd have to dig into more of what the semantics of that
>>> verb says [1] but feels a little like we'd have to adapt more of
>>> WebDAV instead of just reusing the verb and giving it our own special
>>> meaning.
>>>
>>> [1] - http://www.webdav.org/specs/rfc2518.html#METHOD_MKCOL
>>>
>>>> Henry
>>>>
>>>> Social Web Architect
>>>> http://bblfish.net/
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> - Steve
>>>
>>>
>>
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen