Re: Why is DASL restricted to SELECT query or no conditional PROPPATCH...

At 10:51 AM 2/26/99 PST, Imran Khan wrote:
>My goal is to be able to do conditional PROPFIND and PROPPATCH not
>... based on some property values etc. ... 
> looking at DASL draft it seems like it supports only SELECT....,
>and not the whole gamut of SQL stuff like UPDATE...WHERE or
>INSERT...WHERE etc. My point is that why was PROPFIND and PROPPATCH
>not retrofitted with SQL search syntax (could be XML-based). To me
>extending SEARCH method with INSERT, UPDATE etc doesn't seem to be
>right thing because as it says SEARCH seems mean read-only.

This is a very interesting and worthy goal, but I regret that it is not
likely to be supported by DASL.  The DASL effort was intended, from the
beginning, to address the problem of search only, not updates.  In general,
IETF working groups have to restrict the set of problems that they attempt
to address, or they can't make any progress at all.  When DASL was begun,
we chose to consider only search.

Please consult the charter for this working group,
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/dasl-charter.html

At this point in the process, that charter has been set, and can't be
changed without a great deal of effort.  

If you'd think it is important that WebDAV provide means of doing
conditional PROPPATCH, you should probably start a discussion on the topic
on the webdav mailing list.  Perhaps you can convene an informal BOF at the
next IETF meeting (Minneapolis, March.)  Eventually you would issue
internet drafts stating the requirements for such functionality and a
proposed design meeting those requirements, and then form a working group
to address this.

I regret though that it is unlikely that DASL will be able to support your
desired functionality.

By the way, please don't be misled by the similar use of "select" in SQL
and DASL.  While this word and concept is similar in the two designs, there
are many differences in other areas. DASL is not intended to be a "SQL for
the Web".

best wishes.
Jim Davis

Received on Friday, 26 February 1999 17:25:15 UTC