RE: Interop issue: Proposal for fixing lock token provision

RE: Interop issue: Proposal for fixing lock token provisionObviously I agree
with Geoff.

I'd like to underline that I'm *really* interested to understand why a
client would *ever* want a request to succeed if a lock which is supposed to
be present unexpectedly disappeared.

Julian
--
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760

  -----Original Message-----
  From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Clemm, Geoff
  Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 11:18 PM
  To: 'Webdav WG'
  Subject: RE: Interop issue: Proposal for fixing lock token provision


  Julian makes several good points.

  One is that we need to address the If header length problem in 2518bis
  in any case.  Even if we did provide a separate header that allowed
  invalid lock tokens, we still need to use the If header when we want
  to check for a list of valid lock tokens, or when we want to check for
  a list of etags.

  Another good point is that we don't have to argue about whether a
  client should be allowed to submit invalid lock tokens, because once
  the If header length problem is addressed (which we have to do
  anyway), then the "If: <tag> (<token>)(Not <token>)" provides this
  functionality without defining a header with new semantics.

  In an earlier message in this thread, the following points were raised
  as being problems with the "If:...Not..."  approach:

     PROBLEM #1: Servers may not support the OR, and the NOT, correctly,
     because most clients don't currently use this. This solution HAS NOT
     been proven, it is only theoretical. It might not work.

  It will work against all existing servers that are correctly
  implemented and that don't have an If header length problem, unlike
  the "new header" approach, which is guaranteed to fail against all
  existing servers.  If the servers are going to be updated,
  updating them to correctly implement existing semantics seems
  like a sensible approach to take, especially when the existing
  semantics are a "logical or" and a "logical not", built-in operators
  in most programming languages.

     PROBLEM #2: What if multiple locks are required (e.g. moving a
     collection that has multiple locked resources? What if the URLs are
     long? The IF header becomes very long and may be truncated by some
     proxies. E.g.

     If: <http://www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/index.html>
     (<opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>
     NOT <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>)
     <http:// www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/anotherfile.html>
     (<opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf7>
     NOT <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf7>)
     <http:// www.ics.uci.edu/users/f/fielding/thirdfile.html>
     (<opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf8>
     NOT <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf8>)

  This is the If header length problem.  Once we fix the If header
  problem (which we have to do anyway), there no longer is a need
  for a new header to get this functionality.

     PROBLEM #3: Uck, this is really complicated. While it's useful to know
     that a client can do this with some existing servers, provided they
     handle it correctly, surely we can do this in a simpler mechanism that
     is less prone to interoperability problems. A simple header that allows
     the client to supply lock tokens to use is semantically equivalent to
     the above example, but shorter, simpler, and easier to implement. Also
     it can be split across multiple lines.
     Use-Lock-Tokens:
     <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>,
     <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf7>
     Use-Lock-Tokens:
     <opaquelocktoken:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf8>

  Computer programs are really good at spitting out the same string
  twice, surrounded by some constant characters.  Given the verbosity of
  XML, and the fact that the Internet is used to stream video, cutting
  down the number of characters required to identify lock tokens does
  not strike me as a high priority task.  And since any client that
  wants to interoperate with an existing server has to be able to
  generate the If form of the request anyway, this is no simplification
  for an interoperable client that has to be able to generate both forms
  of the request.

  Cheers,
  Geoff



  -----Original Message-----
  From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de]

  Some thoughts:

  - it doesn't make sense to raise the header length problem as argument
    in favor of adding a new header. If the If header length is a
    problem, it needs to be fixed anyway -- no matter how the other
    issues are treated

  - As far as I now understand the client issue (BTW: why aren't the
    developers of this or these clients not participating in this
    dicussion??), they want to avoid to re-issue a request that
    specified a lock token just because the lock went away in the
    meantime. I *still* don't see why this is a problem -- if the lock
    was theirs, it's not supposed to go away without reason (such as bad
    timeout value). If the lock *wasn't* theirs, this is a case of "lock
    stealing", which certainly doesn't require to be optimized, right?

  - if a client really really wants the request to succeed either case
    (lock being present or not), can't he simply submit an If header
    production such as:

  If: <http://www.foo.bar/resource1> (<locktoken:a-write-lock-token>)(Not
<locktoken:a-write-lock-token>))

  ?