- From: Slein, Judith A <JSlein@crt.xerox.com>
- Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:47:03 -0400
- To: "'WebDAV'" <w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>
If you look at version 3.2 of the Advanced Collections spec, you will see that we are defining DELETE to mean just one binding to the resource gets removed, the one identified by the request-URI. If there are multiple bindings to the resource, the rest remain, and the resource continues to be accessible through them. We realize that in the end we need two operations, one of which removes a single binding and the other of which removes all bindings to a resource. The issue is whether to interpret DELETE as removing a single binding and introduce a new DESTROY method to remove all bindings, or to introduce a new UNBIND method to remove a single binding and interpret DELETE as removing all bindings. There has been some discussion on the mailing list of the proposed definition of DELETE as removing a single binding, but I would like to solicit more. This definition appears, on the surface at least, to contradict RFC 2068, which says that the methods defined there apply to resources. For DELETE, it says, "The DELETE method requests that the origin server delete the resource identified by the Request-URI." (It also says that the client should not assume that the operation has been carried out, even if a success status code is returned, so that may give us some room to maneouver.) RFC 2518 explicitly states that a DELETE must result in the removal of all URIs from their collections for the resource identified by the request-URI. What has led us to our proposed definition of DELETE as removing one binding is a concern about the versioning spec. In the context a versioning, it would be nice for down-level clients to be able to issue DELETE requests and have something reasonable happen. But in the context of versioning, the only thing it makes sense to do is remove a single binding. --Judy Judith A. Slein XR&T/Xerox Architecture Center jslein@crt.xerox.com 8*222-5169
Received on Thursday, 22 April 1999 10:44:16 UTC