semantics of PROPFIND

1. For a PROPFIND on a resource that is not a collection, what are the
semantics of Depth that is not 0? Is it an error?  Is it ignored? Is it
left undefined?

2. When Depth is 0, is a server allowed to return an href property in
response, or is it forbidden?  The example in the spec shows no href, but
the spec should say explicitly whether one is allowed.  I say it should be
either optional or mandatory, but not forbidden.

Now two suggestions/reminders for the writeup:

1. Judith Slein asked:
> 2.  What will PROPFIND behavior be if I ask for, say, the author property
> and the title property, and some of the members of the collection have
> those properties while others do not?  What I want to happen if I'm using
> PROPFIND as a substitute for INDEX is that I get at least the href for
> every member of the collection, whether or not it has the properties I
> requested.

And Yaron said he'd put in language to make explicit that one DOES get a
result for every member.

2. The spec should say *explicitly* that the results of PROPFIND (for
non-zero Depth) are a flat list that there is no indication of containment
except by examining the URIs in the HREFs.  It should also state that there
is no significance to order (at least, until we agree to adopt ordered
collections :-))

3. The spec should say, explicitly, that when there is more than one status
result for a given URI, there will be separate instances of response for
each status.  I know this is implied by the examples, but in general, a
specification should not depend upon examples to be complete.


best regards

Jim

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 1998 20:50:18 UTC