Re: RFC 2396bis sec. D.2 editorial suggestion

On Sunday, May 16, 2004, at 10:45  PM, Mike Brown wrote:
> In RFC 2396bis draft 05 section D.2 ("Modifications from RFC 2396"), 
> the
> change to same-document references is currently described like this:
>
>   Removed the special-case treatment of same-document references 
> within the URI
>   parser in favor of a section that explains when a reference should be
>   interpreted by a dereferencing engine as a same-document reference: 
> when the
>   target URI and base URI, excluding fragments, match. This change 
> does not
>   modify the behavior of existing same-document references as defined 
> by RFC
>   2396 (fragment-only references); it merely adds the same-document 
> distinction
>   to other references that refer to the base URI and simplifies the 
> interface
>   between applications and their URI parsers, as is consistent with 
> the internal
>   architecture of deployed URI processing implementations.
>
> I don't think this is complete or accurate. I suggest changing it as 
> follows:
>
>   The determination of whether a URI reference is a same-document
>   reference has been decoupled from the URI parser, simplifying the
>   interface between applications and their URI parsers, as is 
> consistent
>   with the internal architecture of deployed URI processing
>   implementations. The determination is now based on comparison to the
>   same base URI that the reference was resolved against, rather than to
>   the URI of the "current document", which could sometimes differ. 
> Also,
>   it is now permitted to use URI equivalence, not just identity, to 
> make
>   the determination. These changes do not modify how references are
>   resolved to absolute form, but they may affect whether a reference 
> that
>   was defined same-document by RFC 2396 will be interpreted as
>   same-document by an RFC 2396bis-based dereferencing engine, and they
>   may add the same-document distinction to references that would not 
> have
>   had it before.

I appreciate the reordering of sentences, but most of your description
is wrong -- it has no such effect on 2396 same-document references
because those references consisted only of fragment identifiers.
I have rewritten it as

    The determination of whether a URI reference is a same-document
    reference has been decoupled from the URI parser, simplifying the
    URI processing interface within applications in a way consistent
    with the internal architecture of deployed URI processing
    implementations. The determination is now based on comparison to
    the base URI after transforming a reference to absolute form,
    rather than on the format of the reference itself. This change
    may result in additional references being considered "same-document"
    under this specification than would have been the case under the
    rules given in RFC 2396, especially when normalization is used
    to reduce aliases.  However, it does not change the status of
    existing same-document references.


Cheers,

Roy T. Fielding                            <http://roy.gbiv.com/>
Chief Scientist, Day Software              <http://www.day.com/>

Received on Thursday, 15 July 2004 00:57:52 UTC