Subject: Re: BINDing using a weak reference

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 12:56:55 -0500

Alternately, a server implementer can disallow cyclic
     bindings from being inserted in the first place, which is
     computationally much cheaper, but which restricts the usefulness of
     BINDings.  (Like the way UNIX restricts hard links to directories).

   This is now forbidden by the spec.

Just to clarify.  By "this" Geoff was refering to the possibility of the
server not supporting cycles.  The proposed changes now require servers
to allow cycles to be created.  Geoff was not suggesting anything
regarding hard links to directories.

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From: "Eric Sedlar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 12:59:09 -0800

Can a server implementer build both strong & weak BINDings and only allow
cycles in weak bindings?

--Eric

> regarding hard links to directories.

Well either you can use the UNIX filesystem to support advanced collections
or you can't.  It sounds like the current answer is that you can't.

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From: "Geoffrey M. Clemm" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 17:30:30 -0500

From: "Eric Sedlar" <[email-masked]>

The current binding spec only defines strong bindings, but if your
server only allows cycles with weak bindings, you could implement BIND
by anchoring all resources with a strong binding outside of the URL
space, and then use weak bindings to implement all BIND operations.

You can, using the technique described above, i.e. implementing bindings
as symbolic links into a source tree maintained outside of the URL namespace.

Cheers,
Geoff

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From: "Eric Sedlar" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 15:00:44 -0800

Couldn't you make PUT and MKCOL all create strong bindings, and then have weak
BINDings from BIND?  Then you wouldn't have to introduce fake bindings to maintain
persistence?

--Eric