HREF Property in Thai Restaurant

Hello everyone,

I have recently begun to implement a WebDAV layer and I interpreted the
HREF part of a RESPONSE to be the URI of the object for which the
PROPSTAT properties applied. However, looking at the Thai restaurant
example in the DASL document the HREF property is being used to point to
the web site of the Thai restaurant, and not the entry in the underlying
data store:

>> Response 
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: 333

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:" xmlns:F="FOO:"
  xmlns:R="http://ryu.com/propschema">
  <D:response>
    <D:href>http://siamiam.com/</D:href>
    <D:propstat>
      <D:prop>
        <R:location>259 W. Hollywood</R:location>
        <R:rating><R:stars>4</R:stars></R:rating>
      </D:prop>
    </D:propstat>
  </D:response>
</D:multistatus>

Is this just a typo? I assume so, since otherwise, how would some
editing client be able to retrieve the desired object such that it can
modify the URL referred to for the restaurant (or any other property,
for that matter)? Should it not be something like:

  <D:response>
    <D:href>http://ryu.com/siamiam</D:href>
    <D:propstat>
      <D:prop>
        <R:website>http://siamiam.com/</R:website>
        <R:location>259 W. Hollywood</R:location>
        <R:rating><R:stars>4</R:stars></R:rating>
      </D:prop>
    </D:propstat>
  </D:response>

I can imagine a scenario where the underlying data being queried is
actually an index, and so the data stored is 'about' an object, rather
than the object itself. But it still strikes me that there should be a
distinction between what has been indexed, and the actual index's entry
in the server being queried. Using HREF in the way shown here doesn't
seem to maintain that distinction. To pose the question in a different
way: should I be able to do a PROPFIND on one of the results of a query
and get back exactly what the query returned? In this case I wouldn't,
because I would be performing a PROPFIND on a server that might not even
support WebDAV.

If the example is in fact correct, I'd appreciate clarification on why,
from anyone with the time to put me straight. I have trawled both
archives first, and did note that a recent discussion on HREF over on
WebDAV seemed to be assuming that HREF always referred to the object
that the properties being returned related to.

Best regards,

Mark



Mark Birbeck
Managing Director
x-port.net Ltd.
220 Bon Marché Centre
241-251 Ferndale Road
London
SW9 8BJ
w: http://www.iedigital.net/
t: +44 (171) 501 9502
e: Mark.Birbeck@iedigital.net

Received on Sunday, 31 October 1999 18:44:43 UTC