- From: Mark Birbeck <Mark.Birbeck@iedigital.net>
- Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 02:41:18 -0000
- To: "'Jim Davis'" <jrd3@alum.mit.edu>, "WWW WebDAV DASL (E-mail)" <www-webdav-dasl@w3.org>
Jim Davis wrote: > Aha. Now I think I see what the confusion is. You and I are > trying to use the URL for two different things. Usually we > want it to stand for the resource being indexed (the restaurant), > but sometimes we want it to stand for the index itself. This is > why you want to be able to do a PROPPATCH on siamiam.com, to > change the rating. > > Do you agree that this is the problem? I have a long reply, but might save a lot of time with a simple question: In the restaurant example, if I was to do a PROPFIND on the same object would I get exactly the same back as I would with the DASL query? In my previous mails, my assumption was that the PROPFIND HREF value was the URI of the WebDAV resource, not the restaurant's web site, and therefore I was raising the question as to why DASL and WebDAV should return different meanings for the HREF URI. But looking at it again I am starting to wonder if I have not so much a confusion with DASL, but with WebDAV! Is the HREF URI in WebDAV the URI of the meta information or the URI of the information that the WebDAV entry is about? I think my confusion came because, since I have implemented my WebDAV layer over a database, I've elided the distinction between meta information and the resource that the information is about. I assumed from the spec that I had to set the HREF value to the value of the WebDAV resource - a bit like the Content-Location header - because all the sample have it this way. I'm starting to think that what I should have done is placed the URI of the resource that WebDAV has properties 'about'. As you said, it's only because all the resources are on the same server as the WebDAV interface that it 'looks' like HREF is pointing to the WebDAV URL, and not the resource URI. But obviously on this basis my assumption that there is a difference between what is returned by DASL and WebDAV is wrong. I'd guess therefore, that if the HREF is used in this way, then for me to follow through the scenario I have outlined previously, I need *another* WebDAV server (or collection) that has as its members the index entries - one of which is the restaurant entry. This server then controls the locking and so on, on the index resources, which in turn refer to the Thai restaurant web site. Just to be sure I have this right, the first server - the index entries - need only be a level 1 server, since there is no ability to lock the resources referred to - they are not under your control. The second server would contain resources that refer to the indexes on the first server, and it is on this second server that locking goes on, hence it must be a level 2 server. Am I getting warm? Thanks for your patience. Best regards, Mark
Received on Thursday, 18 November 1999 21:40:12 UTC