- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 01:22:48 PST
- To: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>
- CC: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
Roy T. Fielding wrote: > > >I suggest considering eliminating COPY and instead using > >PUT, but when the value being PUT is Content-Type: > >message/external-body, then the server can copy the data > >from the original source. > > I disagree. Doing a PUT of a message/external-body means you want > to create or replace a resource that consists of a message/external-body. > The same problem applies with using multipart/related to imply a different > action than that requested by the method. > > Not surprisingly, I prefer COPY for asking the server to perform a copy, > and the PATCH method for asking the server to perform a partial update. > PATCH had the additional benefit that it was independent of content-type, > and thus I wouldn't have to argue with Fabio about VTML or the MIME folks > about multipart/mixed+message/partial or any number of other data formats > that are great for some tasks and not for others. > > These and other failed attempts at standardizing WEBDAV functionality > within HTTP can be seen in > > http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/history/draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-01.html > > .....Roy I think in MIME that "message" and "multipart" are treated specially. They're not just "application", they're media type where the sender intends for the recipient to actually unwrap the message. I don't think you should *ever* store something as "multpart". Rather, a content negotiated resource is "multpart/alternative", message/http is just another wrapper around the HTTP message as if the wrapper weren't there, etc. -- http://www.parc.xerox.com
Received on Saturday, 22 March 1997 04:57:36 UTC