Two comments and a question on the WSDL HTTP Binding Extension

Hi,

My understanding of table 6-5
(http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20-adjuncts/#_http_serialization) is that all
the whole instance is always transmitted when the input serialization is
"application/xml".

This seems to defeat a use case such as the following one:

I wan to create a blog system conform to the REST principles.

To create a new blog entry, I POST the following item to a generic
location (for instance http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/):

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
POST /blog/ HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic XXXsaXN0OmVpbGF0XXX=
Host: eric.van-der-vlist.com
Content-Length: XXX
Content-Type: application/xml

<item>
  <title>Validatting microformats</title>
  <description>
    <p>This blog entry is folowing up...</p>
    .../...
  </description>
</titem>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The server might answer something such a:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 16:26:52 GMT 
Location: http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277_Validatting_microformats
Content-Length: XXX
Content-Type: application/xml

<item id="2277">
  <title>Validatting microformats</title>
  <description>
    <p>This blog entry is folowing up...</p>
    .../...
  </description>
</titem>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I notice the typo in the first paragraph and update the item using a PUT
at http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277_Validatting_microformats:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PUT /blog//2277_Validatting_microformats HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic XXXsaXN0OmVpbGF0XXX=
Host: eric.van-der-vlist.com
Content-Length: XXX
Content-Type: application/xml

<item id="2277">
  <title>Validatting microformats</title>
  <description>
    <p>This blog entry is following up...</p>
    .../...
  </description>
</titem>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

and the server returns:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 14:05:30 GMT
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I notice the typo in the title and update the item using a PUT at
http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277_Validatting_microformats:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
PUT /blog//2277_Validatting_microformats HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Basic XXXsaXN0OmVpbGF0XXX=
Host: eric.van-der-vlist.com
Content-Length: XXX
Content-Type: application/xml

<item id="2277">
  <title>Validating microformats</title>
  <description>
    <p>This blog entry is following up...</p>
    .../...
  </description>
</titem>
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

and the server returns:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 14:05:45 GMT
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Of course, cool URIs don't change and the URI of this post is still
http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277_Validatting_microformats even if
the title has changed.

This scenario creates several issues with the current Working Draft:

      * In the first PUT, the rule to derive the URI from the instance
        should be clever enough to map @id="2277" and <title>Validating
        microformats</title> into "2277_Validatting_microformats". This
        is already quite a challenge knowing that other blog systems
        migth want to follow other rules and map the same value into
        "2277%20Validatting%20microformats" or "2277+Validatting
        +microformats" or "2277ValidattingMicroformats" or whatever. 
      * In the second put we definitely run out of chance since the
        information that has been used to generate the URI is no longer
        in the instance document.

A suggestion to solve this problem would be to define in the WSDL
document the input instance as:

<whateverRoot>
  <location>2277_Validatting_microformats</location>
  <item id="2277">
    <title>Validating microformats</title>
    <description>
      <p>This blog entry is following up...</p>
      .../...
    </description>
  </titem>
</whateverRoot>

And to add an HTTP binding attribute to give the XPath expression (that
could be a subset of XPath) of what needs to be serialized as XML.

The binding operation could be something such as:

<operation ref="tns:retrieveByReservationQuery" 
      whttp:location="{location}" 
      whttp:method="PUT"
      whttp:inputSerialization="application/xml"
      whttp:inputPayload="/whateverRoot/item"
  /> 

~~~~~~

The second comment I have is that it should be possible to "follow an
hyperlink" and give an absolute URI in the whttp:location attribute.

There seems to be no reason why the URIs should follow a predefined
hierarchical structure and in this blog system example, we could imagine
a central server powering different domains. 

The first POST could be at  http://van-der-vlist.com/blog/ and the
server could determine from my credentials a specific (and dynamic)
domain name for the location of the blog entry
(http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277_Validatting_microformats).

My understanding of the current WD is that whttp:location="{location}"
wouldn't work if location was containing an absolute URI.

Couldn't that behaviour be changed?

~~~~~~

The question I have is about the "URIPath Feedback Requested" in the WD:

"The inclusion of elements of the instance data in the path of the
request URI, whilst supported by WSDL 1.1, is not supported by XForms
1.0. Hence this mechanism MAY be removed in a future version of this
specification. Feedback on this issue from users and implementers is
highly encouraged."

Although the mechanism isn't supported by XForms as such, I am wondering
if it isn't need to support relative URIs in XForms submissions.

Imagine we have a blog system that is more conform to the current WD and
that the item is available at http://eric.van-der-vlist.com/blog/2277.
This should allow to express whttp:location as "{@id}" (BTW, are
attributes supported in these expression?).

Using content negotiation the server could send an XHTML/XForms document
to the user agents that support it and the XForm if the XForms
submissions in this document use relative URIs, the value of
the /item/@id attribute would be part of the URI even if XForms isn't
aware of that fact.

Isn't it a case where XForms would kind of implicitly support these
URIPath mechanism?  

Thanks for your answers.

Eric

-- 
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Eric van der Vlist       http://xmlfr.org            http://dyomedea.com
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