Using DAV namespace for proprietary properties

Hi,

currently RFC2518 is silent on this issue.

However, deltaV says 1.5 [1]: "Although WebDAV request and response bodies
can be extended by arbitrary XML elements, which can be ignored by the
message recipient, an XML element in the DAV namespace MUST NOT be used in
the request or response body of a versioning method unless that XML element
is explicitly defined in an IETF RFC."

I think something similar needs to be added to the revision to RFC2518.

Looking at current implementations I notice that the Microsoft Webfolder
client (sigh!) does a PROPFIND on no less than then 10 proprietary
properties placed into the DAV: namespace ([2]), of which it only seems to
*use* one (DAV:ishidden). Without wiring special knowledge about these
attributes into a server, it will usually have to consult the resource's
dead properties (just to find out that these don't exist). Would it be
permissible to assume that properties in the DAV: namespace *never* are dead
properties, allowing to skip this step?

Julian


[1]
<http://www.webdav.org/deltav/protocol/draft-ietf-deltav-versioning-20.1.htm
#_Toc524830510>
[2]
<http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdavfaq.html#ANSWER-mswebfolder-prop
rietary-properties>

Received on Monday, 18 February 2002 09:29:48 UTC