RE: GET and PUT on References: New language for the spec

I guess the issue is how detailed the specification of the response entity
should be.

The HTTP 1.1 spec says "Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of
the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the
new URI(s)."

If we stay with this level of detail, we would say that for a GET or HEAD,
the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a
hyperlink to the URI of the target resource.  We could say in addition that
the Content-Type of the response should be text/html, and that it should
also be well-formed XML.

The response to a PUT is a more difficult case.  A DAV-aware client would
probably not have tried to do a PUT to a referential resource in the first
place.  For a non-DAV client, the entity of the response should present the
user with a choice between replacing the target resource and replacing the
reference.  Choosing to replace the target should cause the client to send
the PUT request to the target resource.  Choosing to replace the reference
should cause the client to send a DELETE request to the reference, followed
by a resend of the PUT request.  What does the response entity have to be
like to make this happen?

At 10:19 AM 7/6/98 PDT, John Tigue wrote:
><Judy>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Judith Slein [mailto:slein@wrc.xerox.com]
>> Sent: Monday, July 06, 1998 8:12 AM
>> To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
>> Subject: GET and PUT on References: New language for the spec
>> 
>
><snip nextTopic="GET on refs" />
>> The 
>> response SHOULD
>> include an entity body that the client can display if the 
>> redirection is
>> not automatic. The entity body explains that the requested 
>> resource is a
>> reference to another resource and includes a link to the 
>> target resource.
>
><snip nextTopic="PUT on refs" />
>> The response MUST include an entity body for 
>> display to users.
>> The entity body explains that the requested resource is a 
>> reference to
>> another resource, and allows the user to choose between replacing the
>> reference and replacing its target by selecting the URI of 
>> the reference or
>> the URI of its target.  
>
><snip />
></Judy>
>
><John>
>At the face-to-face I argued that the entity bodies should be HTML which
>just so happens to be well formed XML. Tim Bray has worked out a
>constrained subset of the HTML 4.0 DTD such that any document produced
>by the constrained DTD will be 
>1. renderable by a browser
>2. HTML 4.0 compliant
>3. well formed XML
>
>The benefit is for a JavaScript (EcmaScript) application running in a
>browser. The JavaScript does not have access to the HTTP headers. If the
>entity body comes down to the client and is handed off to the
>JavaScript, well formed HTML can be put through an XML processor and the
>JavaScript has a chance of interpreting the information contained in the
>entity body.
>
></John>
>
>
Name:			Judith A. Slein
E-Mail:		slein@wrc.xerox.com
Internal Phone:  	8*222-5169
Fax:			(716) 422-2938
MailStop:		105-50C
Web Site:    http://www.nde.wrc.xerox.com/users/Slein/slein.htm

Received on Tuesday, 7 July 1998 13:55:08 UTC