Re: [i95, i22] - Proposal for clarifying use of SOAPAction

Henrik Frystyk Nielsen wrote:
> ...
> Comments are welcome - especially if they are specific regarding the
> proposed wording :)
> ... 
> An HTTP client MUST use this header field when issuing a SOAP HTTP
                      ^^^
"Use" is ambiguous.  (It might imply reading an existing header, not 
providing the header.)   Use a more specific word: "provide," "attach,"
"generate," etc.

> ...
> The value of the SOAPAction header field is a URI-reference as defined
> by RFC 2396. The URI can be either absolute or relative. If the
> SOAPAction URI is a relative URI, it is interpreted relative to the
> Request-URI. 

Should that URI-reference really be resolved?  

(I'm not clear on the intent, whether the URI-reference should really
be resolved with the request-URI, or whether both are available for
deciding how to dispatch the request.

Will the SOAP/XMLP processor otherwise have access to the URI to which 
the HTTP POST request was sent?   Should it be using that URI for 
anything?  

If I post to "http://host/top/" with "SOAPAction: sub1/sub2" and 
if I post to "http://host/top/sub1/" with "SOAPAction: sub2", should 
I expect to get the same result?  (Both combinations resolve to the
same resolved URI.)

Note also that if the HTTP URI does not end with a slash, resolving
a relative-path URI-reference against it will obliterate the last
segment of the HTTP URI.  

For example, "http://host/one" with "myAction" and "http://host/two" 
with "myAction" both resolve to the same thing.  Would that be intended 
or not?  (This probably is not a major problem, but could be something 
implementors will bump into repeatedly.)


Also, there's the issue from XML namespaces about how to compare the
URI-references used to name namespaces:  Do you compare the given strings 
as strings, or do you try to compare the resolved URIs?  

If the latter, does "http://host" match "http://host.co.com" (especially 
if the code doing the comparison is running on a machine in the co.com 
domain?)  

Does "http://host" match "http://host:80"?  Does "newschema://host" 
match "newscheme://host:1234"?  (That is, do you have to know the scheme
and its default port to decide whether two URIs should be considered to be
the same?))



> ...


Daniel
-- 
Daniel Barclay
Digital Focus
Daniel.Barclay@digitalfocus.com

Received on Thursday, 3 May 2001 18:19:45 UTC