DASL Response Codes

These are some truly minor issues with a great spec.

I'm far from being an expert on HTTP or WebDAV response codes, but I'm a
little concerned by what I see in the DASL 03 protocol spec.  I'd like to
suggest that you consult with Roy Fielding, Jim Whitehead, and Yaron Goland
if you haven't done so already.

Here are my issues:

2.4 207 (Multi-Status) doesn't imply success or failure in WebDAV.  There's
something not quite consistent between 2.4 and 2.5.  I would expect a
success response to get a 200 OK if an error response gets a 400 Bad
Request; or else in both cases to get a 207 Multi-Status with the "real"
status inside the DAV:multistatus in the response body.  But here the
successful case works one way, and the failure case works the other way.

2.5 In WebDAV a DAV:multistatus element occurs only in a 207 (Multi-Status)
response, but you are using it in other responses.  I see the appeal of
being able to find out the real source of the problem in the response line,
without having to read the response body.  I would just like to hear from
the WebDAV authors that this use of DAV:multistatus is consistent with their
intentions about how it would be used.

5.4.2 The response in this example is 400, but its meaning is given as
Multi-Status.  This really seems unacceptable -- to use a response code
defined in rfc 2068, but with a different meaning.  I'd definitely check
with Roy before doing this.

--Judy

Judith A. Slein
Xerox Corporation
jslein@crt.xerox.com
(716)422-5169
800 Phillips Road 105/50C
Webster, NY 14580

Received on Monday, 16 November 1998 17:01:57 UTC