Subject: Relative references and whether requires an authority

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 13:22:24 -0800

Julian,
I notice that the example you provided for relative references ("'/ 
example.com/sample/' and '/example.com/sample/a%20test'") included an  
authority part.   Two things surprised me about that:
  - I thought that the authority part was optional, so there are thus  
even more options for valid 'href' values than the ones you  
provided.  E.g. '/sample/' and '/sample/a%20test' would be valid as  
well as the URLs with authority but no scheme, and the complete  
URLs.  The example text suggested makes it look like the allowable  
WebDAV options are more limited the options RFC3986 offers as valid  
Relative References

  - When the authority part is provided, it looks like it has to  
begin with "//" so your example would be correct as ""'//example.com/ 
sample/' and '//example.com/sample/a%20test'"

I am looking at <http://rfc.net/rfc3986.html#s4.2.> for this.

lisa

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 08:54:17 +0100

Lisa Dusseault wrote:
> Julian,
> I notice that the example you provided for relative references 
> ("'/example.com/sample/' and '/example.com/sample/a%20test'") included 
> an authority part.   Two things surprised me about that:
 > ...

That's a bug. Please ignore the "/example.com" prefix.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 09:15:27 -0800

So would a relative reference of the form "//example.com/sample/" be  
legal in our URL values (href, Destination, If)?  Or do we further  
restrict relative references?

Lisa

On Jan 27, 2006, at 11:54 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>> example.com/sample/' and '/example.com/sample/a%20test'") included

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:30:52 +0100

> restrict relative references?

Syntactically it may be valid, but "example.com" then would be a path 
segment, not the authority.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:24:51 -0800

According to the 3986 BNF, I can't see how the beginning "//" doesn't  
indicate that the following string, up to the next "/" isn't an  
authority.

       relative-part = "//" authority path-abempty
                     / path-absolute
                     / path-noscheme
                     / path-empty

<http://rfc.net/rfc3986.html#s4.2.>

Lisa

On Jan 28, 2006, at 9:30 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>
> Lisa Dusseault wrote:
>
>> So would a relative reference of the form "//example.com/sample/"  
>> be legal in our URL values (href, Destination, If)?  Or do we  
>> further restrict relative references?
>>
>
> Syntactically it may be valid, but "example.com" then would be a  
> path segment, not the authority.
>
> Best regards, Julian
>
>

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 20:43:05 +0100

Lisa Dusseault wrote:
> indicate that the following string, up to the next "/" isn't an authority.
> 

Indeed (you learn something new every day).

I guess that's another reason why we really should use something like:

	Reference      = absolute-URI | ( path-absolute [ "?" query ] )

Best regards, Julian

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From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:19:37 -0800

That seems like the best path.  Since we now believe we want to use  
these in Destination and If header, as well as <href>, I'll define  
that once in the document.  I am not sure a term like "reference" is  
the best term as it's so general, so here's another couple suggestions
    simple-ref
    dav-reference

preferences, anybody?

lisa

On Jan 28, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Lisa Dusseault wrote:
>
>> According to the 3986 BNF, I can't see how the beginning "//"  
>> doesn't indicate that the following string, up to the next "/"  
>> isn't an authority.

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From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:12:10 -0800

Also, should "[ "#" fragment ] " be part of the URL? It would have  
been if we'd stuck with Relative References.  Why ?query and not  
#fragment?

Lisa

On Jan 30, 2006, at 11:19 AM, Lisa Dusseault wrote:

> that once in the document.  I am not sure a term like "reference"  
> is the best term as it's so general, so here's another couple  
> suggestions
>    simple-ref
>    dav-reference
>
> preferences, anybody?
>
> lisa
>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:13:32 +0100

Lisa Dusseault wrote:
> 
> Also, should "[ "#" fragment ] " be part of the URL? It would have been 
> if we'd stuck with Relative References.  Why ?query and not #fragment?

For consistency with 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc3986.html#absolute-uri>.

Best regards, Julian