WebDAV properties

From section 4.5 of RFC 2518

> The property namespace is flat; that is, no hierarchy of properties is
explicitly recognized.  
> Thus, if a property A and a property A/B exist on a resource, there is no
recognition of any 
> relationship between the two properties. . . .
>
> ... it is not possible to define the same property twice on a single
resource, as this would 
> cause a collision in the resource's property namespace.

Example from section 8.2.2

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<D:propertyupdate xmlns:D="DAV:"
xmlns:Z="http://www.w3.com/standards/z39.50/">
 <D:set>
   <D:prop>
      <Z:authors>
          <Z:Author>Jim Whitehead</Z:Author>
          <Z:Author>Roy Fielding</Z:Author>
      </Z:authors>
   </D:prop>
  </D:set>
</D:propertyupdate>


Unless I am interpreting this incorrectly, the example seems to violate the
definition of the property namespace as described in section 4.5.
Can anybody provide any insight into this?
One thought is that maybe
          <Z:Author>Jim Whitehead</Z:Author>
          <Z:Author>Roy Fielding</Z:Author>
is itself the value that should be stored for the Z:authors property?
If that is the case then how do I prevent an XML parser from parsing the
element tags?  Do I have to attempt to rebuild this string from the parsed
data and store it?

Thanks for any help,
Adam Klatzkin
Software Engineer
Bentley Systems

Received on Monday, 20 November 2000 14:10:00 UTC