RE: GETSRC & MULTIPUT

The fundamental question that must be addressed is whether or not the source
resource and the output resource are the same.  To me, the question boils
down to wanting to have symmetry in my methods.  If I call PROPPATCH, I can
then use PROPFIND to see the properties I just wrote.  We need the same
thing for PUT.  If I call PUT on a URL, I want a method that gets me back
the stuff I just PUT at that URL.

Even if I have a script that handles multiple resources, such as a program
called "foo.pl", that can handle

/cgi-bin/foo.pl

AND

/cgi-bin/foo.pl/werf

the argument doesn't really apply, since generally /cgi-bin/foo.pl/werf will
not respond to PUT or PROPPATCH.  It's not really a WebDAV resource.

Here's what WebDAV really needs:

* a method called READ and a method called WRITE
* The WRITE method can be used to write the dead properties and contents of
a resource in a single atomic transaction.
* The READ method can be used to read the dead properties and contents of
the resource EXACTLY as stored by the most recent PROPPATCH/PUT/ACL/WRITE
method stored them

This would address both of the needs that Jim cites.  We could also be extra
clever and perhaps add another header called Property-Length that specifies
the byte length of the property data within the message body, so that we
don't have to use multipart/mime encoding for the contents (which can be
computationally expensive).

--Eric

Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2001 15:19:51 UTC