Subject: [Netconf] RESTCONF Issue #3: collection resource

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2014 18:17:57 -0700

Hi,

If XML is mandatory then a limitation of XML for retrieval
needs to be addressed.

https://github.com/netconf-wg/restconf/issues/3

If a leaf-list or list is specified as the target resource in a GET
operation,
then the server needs to add a top-level wrapper to the response
if multiple instances are possible.

It is quite useful to retrieve an entire leaf-list or list in one simple
request.
The only thing preventing RESTCONF from supporting this feature
is the lack of a top-level container for XML GET responses. (e.g.
<collection>).

The resource type for this top-level container can be defined
as a new media type called "application/yang.collection".
IMO we should define the basic container for a collection now and
define advanced operations on collection resources in a future RFC.

The choices are:

 A) allow GET of multiple leaf-list or list instances at once in XML
       by defining a top-level container for the response, as a
       new collection resource

  B) do not allow GET of multiple leaf-list or list instances at once in XML
      The server will return some error instead.

Andy