RE: Get on a reference

Oops. I forgot about MKREF. Never mind.

Yes, I agree. Sounds like we've reached closure on this.

Alan Babich

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jim Davis [SMTP:jdavis@parc.xerox.com]
> Sent:	July 01, 1998 2:22 PM
> To:	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> Subject:	RE: Get on a reference
> 
> At 01:30 PM 7/1/98 PDT, Babich, Alan wrote:
> >(1) GET on a reference returns 302 as per John's proposal.
> >(2) PUT works on a reference, unless what is being put
> >is not a reference, in which case it fails.
> 
> Sorry, I'm confused. What do you mean?  You can't PUT a reference.
> You can
> create one with MKREF, but not with PUT.
> 
> In John's semantics, a client that does a PUT to a referential
> resource
> gets back a 302 and can then decide what to do.  (Either report an
> error to
> the user or retry the PUT to the new URI.)  If the user desires to
> replace
> the referential resource with one of some other type (either 'plain'
> or
> even a collection) the client first does a DELETE then a PUT (or
> MKCOL).  
> 
> This definition allows suitable clients to make ref resources act
> EXACTLY
> like plain resources, as far as the user is concerned, if the user
> wishes.
> That's real flexibility.  And it also allows clients to treat them
> differently, if desired.
> 
> Look at it this way.  With most current servers you can create a
> redirecting resource by writings a suitable config file somewhere.  So
> this
> capability already exists in the Web. The only difference is that now
> it
> will be possible to create such redirecting resources from the client
> side
> alone, by invoking HTTP methods, without creating or writing any
> server-side config file.
> 
> It's a winner, I think.

Received on Thursday, 2 July 1998 12:07:37 UTC