Subject: [Simple] XCAP issue 4: document to element separator (again!)

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 02:00:02 -0400

Folks,

We've had, since almost day 1, an open issue about what to use as the 
separator beween the component of the URI that points to the document, 
and the rest of it, which poitns to XML elements within the XML document.

For example, consider a document nameed doc.xml that looks like this:

<test>
   <hello/>
</test>

In the following URI:

http://server.example.com/xcap-root/doc.xml/test/hello

                                            ^
                                            |
                                    This is the separator

Here is the progression we had:

1. Originally, it was "?", making the XML element selection through a 
query string. Concerns were raised that this interacted badly with HTTP 
  proxies that wouldnt expect query strings on GET or DELETE.

2. The "#" was proposed, but this just doesnt work, since in HTTP the 
"#" operator is applied locally on the client. FOr us, its on the server.

3. Currently, its "/", so there is no clear break between the document 
and elements within the document. This is, I think, consistent with the 
view that XCAP takes, which is that the URI hierarchy flows smoothly 
from the actual document to content within the document - they are all 
resources. This adds a bit of implementation complexity (as reported by 
Jari).

So, I would proposed that we change this once more, and use the double 
slash, "//", so that in the example above, it would be:

http://server.example.com/xcap-root/doc.xml//test/hello

THis seems to be the best of both worlds; there is now a useful 
syntactic hint. However, the resource hierarchy still transitions 
smoothly from the XML document to content within the document.

Do folks agree to make this change?

Thanks,
Jonathan R.
-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.                600 Lanidex Plaza
Chief Technology Officer                    Parsippany, NJ 07054-2711
dynamicsoft
[email-masked]                     FAX:   (973) 952-5050
http://www.jdrosen.net                      PHONE: (973) 952-5000
http://www.dynamicsoft.com

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