Subject: RE: Ideas: GETSRC & MULTIPUT

From: "Clemm, Geoff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 22:35:27 -0500

From: Jim Whitehead [mailto:[email-masked]]

   These are very good questions.

   One possible set of answers:

   > In general, I believe having distinct URL's for different resources
   > is far superior to defining new methods.  How would you set access
   > control on the "source" resource?

   The dav:readsrc privilege.

Since it is likely that the privileges for the "source" resource
will be very different from those on the "non-source" resource,
I'll also need a dav:writesrc, etc, effectively doubling the 
privilege space, just so that the server can avoid allocating a
new URL to the source resource?  In many cases, there actually
will already be a separate URL (e.g. a /xxx.jsp resource which 
generates the /xxx.html file).

Also, what about PUT?  Is an authoring client going to do a PUT to
/xxx.html in .jsp format, and then a GET will return something in
.html format?  Then what happens when a naive client tries to PUT
something in .html format to /xxx.html, and then get some unexpected
error message (or even worse, the html file will just overwrite the
.jsp resource and generate strange errors at the next GET).  Looks
like we probably should have a PUTSRC, to match the GETSRC.

   > How would you get the properties of the "source" resource?

   In this model it's not a different resource, so you'd use
   PROPFIND. If you want information about the src, then
   dav:srccontentlength, dav:srcetag, dav:srccreationdate,
   dav:srclastmodified... properties would need to be defined.

It probably would make more sense to just have a PROPFINDSRC.  And
probably a COPYSRC.  And an xxxSRC for any new WebDAV method that
could reasonably be applied to either the original resource or to the
"source".

I continue to believe that GETSRC (and its other xxxSRC friends)
would be a very unfortunate direction to pursue.  In particular,
I think having the separate URL is a clear win for clients.  I'd
be interested in even a partially compelling story from the server
vendors as to why they cannot generate additional URL's for the
source resources (or in many cases, expose the source resource URL,
when it already has its own URL).

I'd much rather do nothing here, than do something wrong.

Cheers,
Geoff

---

From: Greg Stein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:31:31 -0800

On Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 10:35:27PM -0500, Clemm, Geoff wrote:
>...

Agreed.

> when it already has its own URL).

No reason here other than "haven't spent time on it (yet)." I pretty much
know how I'd do it -- there isn't any technical problem with it. One new
directive and a little code to auto-generate the DAV:link property.

If client were pushing for it, then I probably would have coded it already.
Kind of a chicken and egg thing.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/