webdav-collection-protocol-00: URI in M-PUT for creating new ref members

Congratulations to Judy for creating this first draft.

I have some questions, and I think I see some problems.  This is the first
of several messages, one per topic, on this draft.

The draft proposes the new referential members will be created using M-PUT
(the syntax defined in the ID "Mandatory Extensions in HTTP").  This
ensures that the server understands the additional headers necessary to
define a referential member correctly.  The URI in the method is that of
the collection, and the URI of the new referential member is in the
Referential-Member header.  Using the M-PUT method (as opposed to plain old
PUT) allows the client to be sure that the server does understand the new
headers (e.g. Referential-Member) defined in the protocol.

Unless I misunderstand the Mandatory ID, this isn't quite right, because it
specifies that after processing the mandatory headers, the method is to be
treated as an ordinary PUT, which in this case would be a PUT to an
existing collection, which must fail.

I suggest instead that the URI in the method be that of the referential
member.   This makes the M-PUT resemble the (ordinary) PUT more closely.
You don't need to pass the URI of the collection to contain the ref member,
since you can get that from syntax of the URI alone.

Received on Tuesday, 9 June 1998 16:31:45 UTC