Including additional properties in WebDAV PROPFIND/allprop requestsgreenbytes GmbHSalzmannstrasse 152MuensterNW48159Germanyjulian.reschke@greenbytes.degreenbytes GmbHSalzmannstrasse 152MuensterNW48159Germanystefan.eissing@greenbytes.de
Recent specifications extending the Web Distributed Authoring Protocol (WebDAV)
restrict the set of properties returned automatically upon a PROPFIND/allprop
request. This specification defines a method to add specific properties to
the set of properties returned upon PROPFIND/allprop.
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Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) working group at w3c-dist-auth@w3.org, which may be joined by sending a message with subject
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Discussions of the WEBDAV working group are archived at URL:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in .
Recent specifications extending the "Web Distributed Authoring Protocol" (WebDAV,
) like "Versioning Extensions to WebDAV"
and "WebDAV Access Control Protocol" restrict the set
of properties returned automatically upon a PROPFIND/allprop request in
order to avoid the expensive computation of properties that the client in many
cases isn't interested in.
However, this change from the behaviour defined in WebDAV can lead to
situations where clients need to perform two requests to retrieve all properties
they are interested in (one using PROPFIND/allprop, then PROPFIND/prop
enumerating the new properties that weren't reported upon the first request).
This specification defines a backward-compatible extension to add specific
properties to the set of properties returned upon PROPFIND/allprop, thus
saving at least one PROPFIND request.
The "allprop" version of PROPFIND is extended to take an optional <include>
element (with namespace-URI "DAV:").
When present, it contains a set of property names that shall be reported
in addition to those properties that the server usually would return upon
PROPFIND/allprop.
In this example, the server has recognized the extension element
<include> and included the DAV: properties <checked-in>
and <checked-out> (as defined in ).
In this case the <include> element was simply ignored. The client
can detect this situation by checking for the presence of the requested
properties and will have to issue an additional PROPFIND/prop request
(to retrieve the missing properties).
Note that the WebDAV DTD is informal only and cannot be used to validate
request or response bodies (due to the inability to properly work with
XML namespaces).
This specification introduces a new child element for the <propfind>
element, defined in . Old servers will ignore this
element (see , chapter 14). Clients can detect
this situation as outlined in .
Clients not aware of this specification will not be affected at all,
because they will never use the new <include> element in PROPFIND
requests.
This proposal builds on , and inherits its
internationalizability.
This proposal does not introduce any new IANA considerations, since
it does not specify any new namespaces (in the general sense), but
merely uses existing ones.
To be supplied by the RFC Editor.
To be supplied by the RFC Editor.
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement LevelsHarvard University1350 Mass. Ave.CambridgeMA 02138- +1 617 495 3864-
General
keyword
In many standards track documents several words are used to signify
the requirements in the specification. These words are often
capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be
interpreted in IETF documents. Authors who follow these guidelines
should incorporate this phrase near the beginning of their document:
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL
NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
RFC 2119.
Note that the force of these words is modified by the requirement
level of the document in which they are used.
HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring -- WEBDAVVersioning Extensions to WebDAVWebDAV Access Control Protocol