One document matched: draft-ietf-webdav-ordering-protocol-01.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-webdav-ordering-protocol-00.txt
WEBDAV Working Group J. Slein, Xerox
INTERNET DRAFT E.J. Whitehead Jr., UC Irvine
<draft-ietf-webdav-ordering-protocol-01.txt> J. Davis, CourseNet
G. Clemm, Rational
C. Fay, FileNet
J. Crawford, IBM
T. Chihaya, DataChannel
October 15, 1999
Expires April 15, 2000
WebDAV Ordered Collections Protocol
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and
its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material
or to cite them other than as "work in progress".
To view the list Internet-Draft Shadow Directories, see
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to the
Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) working group at <w3c-
dist-auth@w3.org>, which may be joined by sending a message with subject
"subscribe" to <w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org>.
Discussions of the WEBDAV working group are archived at URL:
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/>.
Abstract
The WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol provides basic support for
collections, offering the ability to create and list unordered
collections.
This specification is one of a group of three specifications that
supplement the WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol to increase the
power of WebDAV collections. This specification defines a protocol
supporting server-side ordering of collection members. The companion
specifications "WebDAV Bindings"[B] and "WebDAV Redirect Reference
Resources"[RR] define two mechanisms for allowing a single resource to
appear in more than one collection.
Table of Contents
1 Notational Conventions......................................2
2 Introduction................................................3
3 Terminology.................................................3
4 Overview of Ordered Collections.............................4
5 Creating an Ordered Collection..............................5
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5.1 Overview....................................................5
5.2 Example: Creating an Ordered Collection.....................5
6 Setting the Position of a Collection Member.................6
6.1 Overview....................................................6
6.2 Status Codes................................................6
6.3 Examples: Setting the Position of a Collection Member.......6
7 Changing a Collection Ordering..............................7
7.1 ORDERPATCH Method...........................................7
7.1.1 Status Codes................................................7
7.1.2 Example: Changing a Collection Ordering.....................8
7.1.3 Example: Failure of an ORDERPATCH Request...................9
8 Listing the Members of an Ordered Collection...............10
8.1 Example: PROPFIND on an Ordered Collection.................11
9 Status Codes...............................................13
9.1 418 Unordered Collection...................................13
10 Headers....................................................13
10.1 Ordered Entity Header......................................13
10.2 Position Request Header....................................13
11 Properties.................................................14
11.1 orderingtype Property......................................14
12 XML Elements...............................................14
12.1 unordered XML Element......................................14
12.2 custom XML Element.........................................15
12.3 order XML Element..........................................15
12.4 ordermember XML Element....................................15
12.5 position XML Element.......................................15
12.6 first XML Element..........................................15
12.7 last XML Element...........................................16
12.8 before XML Element.........................................16
12.9 after XML Element..........................................16
12.10 options XML Element........................................16
12.11 orderingoptions XML Element................................16
13 Capability Discovery.......................................17
13.1 Example: Discovery of Support for Ordering.................17
13.2 Additional Capabilities....................................18
13.3 Example: Discovery of Ordering Options.....................18
14 Security Considerations....................................19
14.1 Denial of Service and DAV:orderingtype.....................19
15 Internationalization Considerations........................19
16 IANA Considerations........................................19
17 Copyright..................................................20
18 Intellectual Property......................................20
19 Acknowledgements...........................................20
20 References.................................................20
21 Authors' Addresses.........................................20
22 Appendices.................................................21
22.1 Appendix 1: Extensions to the WebDAV Document Type
Definition.................................................21
1 Notational Conventions
Since this document describes a set of extensions to the WebDAV
Distributed Authoring Protocol [WebDAV], itself an extension to the
HTTP/1.1 protocol, the augmented BNF used here to describe protocol
elements is exactly the same as described in Section 2.1 of [HTTP].
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Since this augmented BNF uses the basic production rules provided in
Section 2.2 of [HTTP], these rules apply to this document as well.
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 [RFC2119].
2 Introduction
The simple collections that the WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol
specification supports are powerful enough to be widely useful. They
provide for the hierarchical organization of resources, with mechanisms
for creating and deleting collections, copying and moving them, locking
them, adding members to them and removing members from them, and getting
listings of their members. Delete, copy, move, list, and lock
operations can be applied recursively, so that a client can operate on
whole hierarchies with a single request.
This specification is one of a family of three specifications that build
on the infrastructure defined in [HTTP] and [WebDAV] to extend the
capabilities of collections. The companion specifications "WebDAV
Bindings"[B] and "WebDAV Redirect Reference Resources"[RR] define
mechanisms for allowing the same resource to appear in multiple
collections. The present specification defines protocol extensions to
support ordered collections.
There are many scenarios where it is useful to impose an ordering on a
collection at the server, such as expressing a recommended access order,
or a revision history order. Orderings may be based on property values,
but they may be completely independent of any properties on the
resources identified by the collection's internal member URIs.
Orderings based on properties can be obtained using a search protocol,
but orderings not based on properties need some other mechanism. These
orderings generally need to be maintained by a human user. The ordering
protocol defined here focuses on support for such human-maintained
orderings, but also allows for server-maintained orderings.
The remainder of this document is structured as follows: Section 3
defines terminology that will be used throughout the specification.
Section 4 provides an overview of ordered collections. Section 5
describes how to create an ordered collection, and Section 6 discusses
how to set a member's position in the ordering of a collection. Section
7 explains how to change a collection ordering. Section 8 discusses
listing the members of an ordered collection. Sections 9 through 12
define the status codes, headers, properties, and XML elements needed to
support ordered collections. Section 13 describes capability discovery.
Sections 14 through 16 discuss security, internationalization, and IANA
considerations. The remaining sections provide supporting information.
3 Terminology
The terminology used here follows that in the WebDAV Distributed
Authoring Protocol specification [WebDAV]. Definitions of the terms
resource, Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) are provided in [URI]. Definitions of the terms URI
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mapping, path segment, binding, collection, and internal member URI are
provided in [B].
Ordered Collection
A collection for which the results from a PROPFIND request are
guaranteed to be in the order specified for that collection
Unordered Collection
A collection for which the client cannot depend on the
repeatability of the ordering of results from a PROPFIND request
Client-Maintained Ordering
An ordering of collection members that is maintained on the server
based on client requests specifying the position of each
collection member in the ordering
Server-Maintained Ordering
An ordering of collection members that is maintained automatically
by the server, based on a client's choice of ordering semantics
4 Overview of Ordered Collections
If a collection is unordered, the client cannot depend on the
repeatability of the ordering of results from a PROPFIND request. By
specifying an ordering for a collection, a client requires the server to
follow that ordering whenever it responds to a PROPFIND request on that
collection.
These server-side orderings may be client-maintained or server-
maintained. For client-maintained orderings, a client must specify the
position of each of the collection's bindings in the ordering, either
when the binding is added to the collection (using the Position header)
or later (using the ORDERPATCH method). For server-maintained
orderings, the server automatically positions each of the collection's
bindings according to the ordering semantics.
A collection that supports ordering may be ordered, but is not required
to be. It is up to the client to decide whether a given collection is
ordered and, if so, to specify the semantics to be used for ordering its
bindings. If a collection is ordered, each of its bindings, and hence
internal member URIs, MUST be in the ordering exactly once, and the
ordering MUST NOT include any binding that is not contained by the
collection. Only one ordering can be attached to any collection. An
ordering is considered to be part of the state of a collection resource,
and hence is the same across all URI mappings to the collection.
Multiple orderings of the same resources can be achieved by creating
multiple collections referencing those resources, and attaching a
different ordering to each collection.
The server is responsible for enforcing these constraints on orderings.
The server MUST remove a binding (and its derived internal member URI)
from the ordering when it is removed from the collection. The server
MUST add a binding (and its derived internal member URI) to the ordering
when it is added to the collection.
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5 Creating an Ordered Collection
5.1 Overview
When a collection is created, the client MAY request that it be ordered
and specify the semantics of the ordering by using the new Ordered
header (defined in Section 10.1) with a MKCOL request.
For collections that are ordered, the client SHOULD identify the
semantics of the ordering with a URI in the Ordered header. This URI
may identify a server-maintained ordering. Clients can discover the
available server-maintained orderings using the mechanism defined in
Section 13.2. The URI may identify a semantics for a client-maintained
ordering, providing the information a human user or software package
needs to insert new collection members into the ordering intelligently.
Although the URI in the Ordered header MAY point to a resource that
contains a definition of the semantics of the ordering, clients are
discouraged from accessing that resource, in order to avoid
overburdening its server. The client MAY set the header value to
DAV:custom to indicate that the collection is ordered, but the semantics
of the ordering are not being advertised. If the client does not want
the collection to be ordered, it may omit the Ordered header, or use it
with the value DAV:unordered.
If the server does not recognize the value of the Ordered header as one
of its server-maintained orderings, it MUST assume that a client-
maintained ordering is intended. If the value of the Ordered header is
one of the server-maintained orderings that the server supports, it MUST
maintain the collection's ordering according to that ordering semantics
as new members are added.
Every collection MUST have a DAV:orderingtype property (defined in
Section 11.1), which indicates whether the collection is ordered and, if
so, identifies the semantics of the ordering. The server sets the
initial value of this property based on the value of the Ordering header
in the MKCOL request. If the collection is unordered, the
DAV:orderingtype property MUST have the value DAV:unordered. An
ordering-aware client interacting with an ordering-unaware server (e.g.,
one that is implemented only according to [WebDAV]) SHOULD assume that
if a collection does not have the DAV:orderingtype property, the
collection is unordered.
5.2 Example: Creating an Ordered Collection
>>Request:
MKCOL /theNorth/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.server.org
Ordered: <http://www.server.org/orderings/compass.html>
>>Response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
In this example a new, ordered collection was created. Its
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DAV:orderingtype property has as its value the URI from the Ordered
header, http://www.server.org/orderings/compass.html. In this case, the
URI identifies the semantics governing a client-maintained ordering. As
new members are added to the collection, clients or end users can use
the semantics to determine where to position the new members in the
ordering.
6 Setting the Position of a Collection Member
6.1 Overview
When a new member is added to a collection with a client-maintained
ordering (for example, with PUT, MKREF, or MKCOL), its position in the
ordering can be set with the new Position header (defined in Section
10.2). The Position header allows the client to specify that the member
should be first in the collection's ordering, last in the collection's
ordering, immediately before some other binding in the collection's
ordering, or immediately after some other binding in the collection's
ordering.
6.2 Status Codes
409 (Conflict): The request specifies a position that is before or after
a URI that is not an internal member URI of the collection, or before or
after itself.
418 (Unordered Collection): The request specifies a collection position
in an unordered collection or in a collection with a server-maintained
ordering.
6.3 Examples: Setting the Position of a Collection Member
>> Request:
MKREF /~whitehead/dav/spec08.ref HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.ics.uci.edu
Ref-Target: <http://www.ics.uci.edu/i-d/draft-webdav-protocol-08.txt>
Position: after <requirements.html>
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
This request resulted in the creation of a new referential resource at
www.ics.uci.edu/~whitehead/dav/spec08.ref, which points to the resource
identified by the Ref-Target header. The Position header in this
example caused the server to set its position in the ordering of the
/~whitehead/dav/ collection immediately after requirements.html.
>> Request:
MOVE /i-d/draft-webdav-protocol-08.txt HTTP/1.1
Host: www.ics.uci.edu
Destination: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~whitehead/dav/draft-webdav-
protocol-08.txt
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Position: first
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 418 Unordered Collection
In this case, the server returned a 418 (Unordered Collection) status
code because the /~whitehead/dav/ collection is an unordered collection.
Consequently, the server was unable to satisfy the Position header.
7 Changing a Collection Ordering
7.1 ORDERPATCH Method
The ORDERPATCH method is used to change the ordering semantics of a
collection or to change the order of bindings in a client-maintained
ordering or both.
The ORDERPATCH method changes the ordering semantics of the collection
identified by the Request-URI, based on the value of DAV:orderingtype
submitted in the request entity body. If the new value identifies a
client-maintained ordering, the client is responsible for updating the
collection's ordering according to the new semantics. If it identifies
a server-maintained ordering, the server MUST reorder the collection
according to the new semantics.
The ORDERPATCH method alters the ordering of bindings in the collection
identified by the Request-URI, based on instructions in the ordermember
XML elements in the request entity body. The ordermember XML elements
identify the bindings whose positions are to be changed, and describes
their new positions in the ordering. Each new position can be specified
as first in the ordering, last in the ordering, immediately before some
other binding, or immediately after some other binding.
The server MUST apply the changes in the order they appear in the order
XML element. The server MUST either apply all the changes or apply none
of them. If any error occurs during processing, all executed changes
MUST be undone and a proper error result returned.
7.1.1 Status Codes
Since multiple changes can be requested in a single ORDERPATCH request,
the server MUST return a 207 (Multi-Status) response, as defined in
[WebDAV].
The following are examples of response codes one would expect to be used
in a 207 (Multi-Status) response for this method:
200 (OK): The change in ordering was successfully made.
409 (Conflict): The request specifies a position that is before or after
a URI that is not an internal member URI of the collection, or before or
after itself.
418 (Unordered Collection): The request specifies a collection position
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in an unordered collection or in a collection with a server-maintained
ordering.
A request to reposition a binding at the same place in the ordering is
not an error.
7.1.2 Example: Changing a Collection Ordering
Consider a collection /coll-1/ whose DAV:orderingtype is DAV:unordered,
with bindings ordered as follows:
nunavut.map
nunavut.img
baffin.map
baffin.desc
baffin.img
iqaluit.map
nunavut.desc
iqaluit.img
iqaluit.desc
>> Request:
ORDERPATCH /coll-1/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.nunanet.com
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxx
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<d:order xmlns:d="DAV:">
<d:orderingtype>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/geog.ord</d:href>
</d:orderingtype>
<d:ordermember>
<d:href>nunavut.desc</d:href>
<d:position>
<d:after>
<d:href>nunavut.map</d:href>
</d:after>
</d:position>
</d:ordermember>
<d:ordermember>
<d:href>iqaluit.img</d:href>
<d:position>
<d:last/>
</d:position>
</d:ordermember>
</d:order>
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxx
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<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<d:multistatus xmlns:d="DAV:">
<d:response>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/coll-1/</d:href>
<d:propstat>
<d:prop><d:orderingtype/></d:prop>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</d:status>
</d:propstat>
</d:response>
<d:response>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/coll-1/nunavut.desc</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</d:status>
</d:response>
<d:response>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/coll-1/iqaluit.img</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</d:status>
</d:response>
</d:multistatus>
In this example, after the request has been processed, the previously
unordered collection has become an ordered collection whose ordering
semantics are identified by the URI http://www.nunanet.com/geog.ord. The
value of the collection's DAV:orderingtype property has been set to this
URI. Since this is a client-maintained ordering, the request also
contained instructions for changing the positions of the bindings in the
ordering to comply with the new ordering semantics. If href elements are
relative URIs, as in this example, they are interpreted relative to the
collection whose ordering is being modified. After the request has been
processed, the collection's ordering is as follows:
nunavut.map
nunavut.desc
nunavut.img
baffin.map
baffin.desc
baffin.img
iqaluit.map
iqaluit.desc
iqaluit.img
7.1.3 Example: Failure of an ORDERPATCH Request
Consider a collection /coll-1/ with bindings ordered as follows:
nunavut.map
nunavut.img
baffin.map
baffin.desc
baffin.img
iqaluit.map
nunavut.desc
iqaluit.img
iqaluit.desc
>> Request:
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ORDERPATCH /coll-1/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.nunanet.com
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxx
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<d:order xmlns:d="DAV:">
<d:ordermember>
<d:href>nunavut.desc</d:href>
<d:position>
<d:after>
<d:href>nunavut.map</d:href>
</d:after>
</d:position>
</d:ordermember>
<d:ordermember>
<d:href>iqaluit.map</d:href>
<d:position>
<d:after>
<d:href>pangnirtung.img</d:href>
</d:after>
</d:position>
</d:ordermember>
</d:order>
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxx
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<d:multistatus xmlns:d="DAV:">
<d:response>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/coll-1/nunavut.desc</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 424 Failed Dependency</d:status>
</d:response>
<d:response>
<d:href>http://www.nunanet.com/coll-1/iqaluit.map</d:href>
<d:status>HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict</d:status>
<d:responsedescription>pangnirtung.img is not a collection
member.</d:responsedescription>
</d:response>
</d:multistatus>
In this example, the client attempted to position iqaluit.map after a
binding that is not contained in the collection /coll-1/. The server
responded to this client error with a 409 (Conflict) status code.
Because ORDERPATCH is an atomic method, the request to reposition
nunavut.desc (which would otherwise have succeeded) failed with a 424
(Failed Dependency) status code.
8 Listing the Members of an Ordered Collection
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A PROPFIND request is used to retrieve a listing of the members of an
ordered collection, just as it is used to retrieve a listing of the
members of an unordered collection.
However, when responding to a PROPFIND on an ordered collection, the
server MUST order the response elements according to the ordering
defined on the collection. If a collection is unordered, the client
cannot depend on the repeatability of the ordering of results from a
PROPFIND request.
When responding to a PROPFIND on an ordered collection, the server
SHOULD include the DAV:orderingtype property in the DAV:response element
for the collection, even if the client did not explicitly request it.
8.1 Example: PROPFIND on an Ordered Collection
Suppose a PROPFIND request is submitted to the following collection,
which has its members ordered according to their distance from the
equator.
/MyCollection/
lakehazen.html
siorapaluk.html
iqaluit.html
newyork.html
>> Request:
PROPFIND /MyCollection/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.svr.com
Depth: 1
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxxx
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
<D:prop xmlns:J=http://www.svr.com/jsprops/>
<D:resourcetype/>
<J:latitude/>
</D:prop>
</D:propfind>
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: xxxx
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:"
xmlns:J="http:www.svr.com/jsprops/">
<D:response>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/MyCollection/</D:href>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
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<D:resourcetype><D:collection/></D:resourcetype>
<D:orderingtype>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/jslatitudedesc</D:href>
</D:orderingtype>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
</D:propstat>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
<J:latitude/>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found</D:status>
</D:propstat>
</D:response>
<D:response>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/MyCollection/lakehazen.html</D:href>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
<D:resourcetype/>
<J:latitude>82N</J:latitude>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
</D:propstat>
</D:response>
<D:response>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/MyCollection/siorapaluk.html</D:href>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
<D:resourcetype/>
<J:latitude>78N</J:latitude>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
</D:propstat>
</D:response>
<D:response>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/MyCollection/iqaluit.html</D:href>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
<D:resourcetype/>
<J:latitude>62N</J:latitude>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
</D:propstat>
</D:response>
<D:response>
<D:href>http://www.svr.com/MyCollection/newyork.html</D:href>
<D:propstat>
<D:prop>
<D:resourcetype/>
<J:latitude>45N</J:latitude>
</D:prop>
<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
</D:propstat>
</D:response>
</D:multistatus>
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In this example, the server responded with a list of the collection
members ordered according to their distance from the equator, as
specified by the value of DAV:orderingtype. Although the client did not
explicitly ask for the value of DAV:orderingtype, the server provided it
as one of the collection properties, allowing the client to tell that
the collection is ordered and to identify the ordering semantics.
9 Status Codes
9.1 418 Unordered Collection
The 418 (Unordered Collection) status code indicates that the client
attempted to set the position of an internal collection member in an
unordered collection or in a collection with a server-maintained
ordering.
10 Headers
10.1 Ordered Entity Header
Ordered = "Ordered" ":" ("DAV:unordered" | "DAV:custom" | Coded-url)
The Ordered header may be used with MKCOL to request that the new
collection be ordered and to specify its ordering semantics. A value of
"DAV:unordered" indicates that the collection is not ordered. A value of
"DAV:custom" indicates that the collection is to be ordered, but the
semantics of the ordering is not being advertised. Any other Coded-url
value indicates that the collection is ordered, and identifies the
semantics of the ordering.
10.2 Position Request Header
Position = "Position" ":" ("first" | "last" |
(("before" | "after") Generic-Coded-url))
Generic-Coded-url = "<" (absoluteURI | relativeURI) ">"
absoluteURI is defined in Section 3 of [URI].
relativeURI is defined in Section 5 of [URI].
The Position header may be used with any method that adds a binding to a
collection with a client-maintained ordering, to tell the server where
in the collection ordering to position the new binding being added to
the collection. Examples of methods that add bindings to collections
are BIND, PUT, COPY, MOVE, etc.
If the Generic-Coded-url is a relative URL, it is interpreted relative
to the collection to which the new binding is being added.
The server MUST insert the new binding into the ordering at the location
specified in the Position header, if one is present (and if the
collection has a client-maintained ordering).
The "first" keyword indicates the new binding is put in the beginning
position in the collection's ordering, while "last" indicates the new
binding is put in the final position in the collection's ordering. The
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"before" keyword indicates the new binding is added to the collection's
ordering immediately prior to the position of the binding identified in
the Generic-Coded-url. Likewise, the "after" keyword indicates the new
binding is added to the collection's ordering immediately following the
position of the binding identified in the Generic-Coded-url.
If the request is replacing an existing resource, and the Position
header is present, the server MUST remove the binding from its previous
position, and then insert it at the requested position.
If the Position request header is not used when adding a binding to a
collection with a client-maintained ordering, then:
o If the request is replacing an existing resource, the server MUST
preserve the present ordering.
o If the request is adding a new binding to the collection, the server
MUST append the new binding to the end of the ordering.
If an attempt is made to use the Position header on a collection that is
unordered or that has a server-maintained ordering, the server MUST fail
the request with a 418 (Unordered) status code.
11 Properties
11.1 orderingtype Property
Name: orderingtype
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Indicates whether the collection is ordered and, if so,
uniquely identifies the semantics of the ordering being
used. May also point to an explanation of the semantics in
human and / or machine-readable form. At a minimum, this
allows human users who add members to the collection to
understand where to position them in the ordering. This
property cannot be set using PROPPATCH. Its value can only
be set by including the Ordered header with a MKCOL request
or by submitting an ORDERPATCH request.
Value: The value unordered indicates that the collection is not
ordered. The value custom indicates that the collection is
ordered, but the semantics governing the ordering are not
being advertised. If the value is an href element, it
contains a URI that uniquely identifies the semantics of the
collection's ordering.
<!ELEMENT orderingtype (unordered | custom | href) >
12 XML Elements
12.1 unordered XML Element
Name: unordered
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: A value of the DAV:orderingtype property that indicates that
the collection is not ordered. That is, the client cannot
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depend on the repeatability of the ordering of results from
a PROPFIND request.
<!ELEMENT unordered EMPTY >
12.2 custom XML Element
Name: custom
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: A value of the DAV:orderingtype property that indicates that
the collection is ordered, but the semantics of the ordering
are not being advertised.
<!ELEMENT custom EMPTY >
12.3 order XML Element
Name: order
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: For use with the new ORDERPATCH method. Describes a change
to be made in a collection's ordering semantics or in the
positions of its bindings in the ordering or both.
Value: An optional identifier of an ordering semantics for the
collection, followed by a list of changes to be made in the
positions of the bindings in the collection's ordering.
<!ELEMENT order (orderingtype?, ordermember*) >
12.4 ordermember XML Element
Name: ordermember
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the order XML element, and describes the new
position of a single binding in the collection's ordering.
Value: An href containing a binding's path segment, and a
description of its new position in the ordering. The href
XML element is defined in [WebDAV], Section 11.3.
<!ELEMENT ordermember (href, position) >
12.5 position XML Element
Name: position
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the ordermember XML element. Describes the new
position in a collection's ordering of one of the bindings
it contains.
Value: The new position can be described as first in the
collection's ordering, last in the collection's ordering,
immediately before some other binding, or immediately after
some other binding.
<!ELEMENT position (first | last | before | after)>
12.6 first XML Element
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Name: first
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the position XML element. Specifies that the
binding should be placed first in the collection's ordering.
<!ELEMENT first EMPTY >
12.7 last XML Element
Name: last
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the position XML element. Specifies that the
binding should be placed last in the collection's ordering.
<!ELEMENT last EMPTY >
12.8 before XML Element
Name: before
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the position XML element. Specifies that the
binding should be placed immediately before the binding in
the enclosed href XML element in the collection's ordering.
Value: href of the member it precedes in the ordering
<!ELEMENT before href >
12.9 after XML Element
Name: after
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Occurs in the position XML element. Specifies that the
binding should be placed immediately after the binding in
the enclosed href XML element in the collection's ordering.
Value: href of the member it follows in the ordering
<!ELEMENT after href >
12.10 options XML Element
Name: options
Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Used in OPTIONS requests to ask for more detailed
information about capabilities than can be provided in the
DAV: response header. Used in OPTIONS responses to provide
that information.
Value: List of elements identifying or providing the additional
information desired.
<!ELEMENT options (orderingoptions | ANY)+ >
12.11 orderingoptions XML Element
Name: orderingoptions
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Namespace: DAV:
Purpose: Used in OPTIONS requests to ask for the list of server-
maintained orderings that can be supported at the request-
URI. Used in OPTIONS responses to provide that information.
These values can be used in the Ordered header or the
DAV:orderingtype property to request that a particular
server-maintained ordering be applied to the collection.
Value: EMPTY on requests. On responses, it is the list of server-
maintained orderings available for the request-URI.
<!ELEMENT orderingoptions ( (#PCDATA)+ | EMPTY) >
13 Capability Discovery
Sections 9.1 and 15 of [WebDAV] describe the use of compliance classes
with the DAV header in responses to OPTIONS, to indicate which parts of
the Web Distributed Authoring protocols the resource supports. This
specification defines an OPTIONAL extension to [WebDAV]. It defines a
new compliance class, called orderedcoll, for use with the DAV header in
responses to OPTIONS requests. If a collection resource does support
ordering, its response to an OPTIONS request MUST indicate that it does,
by listing the new ORDERPATCH method as one it supports, and by listing
the new orderedcoll compliance class in the DAV header.
When responding to an OPTIONS request, only a collection or a null
resource can include orderedcoll in the value of the DAV header. By
including orderedcoll, the resource indicates that its bindings can be
ordered. It implies nothing about whether any collections identified by
its internal member URIs can be ordered.
13.1 Example: Discovery of Support for Ordering
>> Request:
OPTIONS /somecollection/ HTTP/1.1
HOST: somehost.org
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:52:29 GMT
Connection: close
Accept-Ranges: none
Allow: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, COPY, MOVE, MKCOL,
PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, ORDERPATCH
Public: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, COPY, MOVE, MKCOL,
PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, BIND, MKREF, ORDERPATCH
DAV: 1, 2, orderedcoll
The DAV header in the response indicates that the resource
/somecollection/ is level 1 and level 2 compliant, as defined in
[WebDAV]. In addition, /somecollection/ supports ordering. The Allow
header indicates that ORDERPATCH requests can be submitted to
/somecollection/. The Public header shows that other Request-URIs on
the server support additional methods.
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13.2 Additional Capabilities
Clients may need detailed information about specific areas of Web
Distributed Authoring functionality. This information can be requested
by sending an OPTIONS request with an XML body that includes a
DAV:options element. The DAV:options element contains a list of empty
elements identifying the information the client needs.
As described in Section 3, servers may offer a set of server-maintained
orderings on collections. Clients can discover the list of server-
maintained orderings available for the request-URI by including an empty
DAV:orderingoptions element in the DAV:options element. The response
will include a DAV:orderingoptions element with the list of supported
server-maintained orderings. Servers SHOULD advertise the server-
maintained orderings available using this mechanism.
13.3 Example: Discovery of Ordering Options
>> Request:
OPTIONS /somecollection/ HTTP/1.1
HOST: somehost.org
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<D:options xmlns:D="DAV:">
<D:orderingoptions/>
</D:options>
>> Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:52:29 GMT
Connection: close
Accept-Ranges: none
Allow: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, COPY, MOVE, MKCOL,
PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, ORDERPATCH
Public: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, COPY, MOVE, MKCOL,
PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, BIND, MKREF, ORDERPATCH
DAV: 1, sharing, orderedcoll
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<D:options xmlns:D="DAV:">
<D:orderingoptions xmlns:X="Xerox:">
<X:author-ascending/>
<X:title-ascending/>
<X:date-descending/>
</D:orderingoptions>
</D:options>
This response indicates that the resource /somecollection/ is level 1
compliant, as defined in [WebDAV]. In addition, /somecollection/
supports ordering. The client also asked for a list of the server-
maintained orderings that are supported for /somecollection/. The
response indicates that the orderings Xerox:author-ascending,
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Internet-Draft WebDAV Ordered Collections October 1999
Xerox:title-ascending, and Xerox:date-descending are supported.
14 Security Considerations
This section is provided to make WebDAV applications aware of the
security implications of this protocol.
All of the security considerations of HTTP/1.1 and the WebDAV
Distributed Authoring Protocol specification also apply to this protocol
specification. In addition, ordered collections introduce a new
security concern. This issue is detailed here.
14.1 Denial of Service and DAV:orderingtype
There may be some risk of denial of service at sites that are advertised
in the DAV:orderingtype property of collections. However, it is
anticipated that widely-deployed applications will use hard-coded values
for frequently-used ordering semantics rather than looking up the
semantics at the location specified by DAV:orderingtype. In addition,
Section 3 discourages clients from looking up the semantics at that
location.
15 Internationalization Considerations
This specification follows the practices of [WebDAV] in encoding all
human-readable content using XML [XML] and in the treatment of names.
Consequently, this specification complies with the IETF Character Set
Policy [Alvestrand].
WebDAV applications MUST support the character set tagging, character
set encoding, and the language tagging functionality of the XML
specification. This constraint ensures that the human-readable content
of this specification complies with [Alvestrand].
As in [WebDAV}, names in this specification fall into three categories:
names of protocol elements such as methods and headers, names of XML
elements, and names of properties. Naming of protocol elements follows
the precedent of HTTP, using English names encoded in USASCII for
methods and headers. The names of XML elements used in this
specification are English names encoded in UTF-8.
For error reporting, [WebDAV] follows the convention of HTTP/1.1 status
codes, including with each status code a short, English description of
the code (e.g., 423 Locked). Internationalized applications will ignore
this message, and display an appropriate message in the user's language
and character set.
For rationales for these decisions and advice for application
implementors, see [WebDAV].
16 IANA Considerations
This document uses the namespaces defined by [WebDAV] for properties and
XML elements. All other IANA considerations mentioned in [WebDAV] also
apply to this document.
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In addition, this document defines a new HTTP/1.1 status code, 418
(Unordered Collection) defined in Section 9.1.
17 Copyright
To be supplied by the RFC Editor.
18 Intellectual Property
To be supplied by the RFC Editor.
19 Acknowledgements
This draft has benefited from thoughtful discussion by Jim Amsden, Steve
Carter, Ken Coar, Ellis Cohen, Bruce Cragun, Spencer Dawkins, Mark Day,
Rajiv Dulepet, David Durand, Roy Fielding, Yaron Goland, Fred Hitt, Alex
Hopmann, Marcus Jager, Chris Kaler, Manoj Kasichainula, Rohit Khare,
Daniel LaLiberte, Steve Martin, Larry Masinter, Jeff McAffer, Surendra
Koduru Reddy, Max Rible, Sam Ruby, Bradley Sergeant, Nick Shelness, John
Stracke, John Tigue, John Turner, and others.
20 References
[URI] T. Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource
Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax." RFC 2396. MIT/LCS, U.C. Irvine,
Xerox. August, 1998.
[RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels." RFC 2119, BCP 14. Harvard University. March, 1997.
[XML] T. Bray, J. Paoli, C.M. Sperberg-McQueen, "Extensible Markup
Language (XML)." World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-xml-
19980210. http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210.
[HTTP] R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P.
Leach, T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1." RFC
2616. UC Irvine, Compaq, W3C, Xerox, Microsoft. June, 1999.
[WebDAV] Y. Y. Goland, E. J. Whitehead, Jr., A. Faizi, S. R. Carter, D.
Jensen, "HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring - WebDAV." RFC 2518.
Microsoft, U.C. Irvine, Netscape, Novell. February, 1999.
[B] J. Slein, E.J. Whitehead Jr., J. Davis, G. Clemm, C. Fay, J.
Crawford, T. Chihaya, "WebDAV Bindings." Internet Draft (work in
progress) draft-ietf-webdav-binding-protocol-00. Xerox, UC Irvine,
CourseNet, Rational, FileNet, IBM, DataChannel. August, 1999.
[RR] J. Slein, E.J. Whitehead Jr., J. Davis, G. Clemm, C. Fay, J.
Crawford, T. Chihaya, "WebDAV Redirect References." Internet Draft (work
in progress) draft-ietf-webdav-redirectref-protocol-00. Xerox, UC
Irvine, CourseNet, Rational, FileNet, IBM, DataChannel. August, 1999.
21 Authors' Addresses
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Internet-Draft WebDAV Ordered Collections October 1999
J. Slein
Xerox Corporation
800 Phillips Road, 105-50C
Webster, NY 14580
Email: jslein@crt.xerox.com
E. J. Whitehead, Jr.
Dept. of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425
Email: ejw@ics.uci.edu
J. Davis
CourseNet Systems
170 Capp Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Email: jrd3@alum.mit.edu
G. Clemm
Rational Software Corporation
20 Maguire Road
Lexington, MA 02173-3104
Email: gclemm@rational.com
C. Fay
FileNet Corporation
3565 Harbor Boulevard
Costa Mesa, CA 92626-1420
Email: cfay@filenet.com
J. Crawford
IBM
Email: ccjason@us.ibm.com
T. Chihaya
DataChannel, Inc.
155 108th Ave. N.E., Suite 400
Bellevue, WA 98004
Email: Tyson@DataChannel.com
22 Appendices
22.1 Appendix 1: Extensions to the WebDAV Document Type Definition
<!--============= XML Elements from Section 12 ================-->
<!ELEMENT unordered EMPTY >
<!ELEMENT custom EMPTY >
<!ELEMENT order (orderingtype?, ordermember*) >
<!ELEMENT ordermember (href, position) >
<!ELEMENT position (first | last | before | after)>
<!ELEMENT first EMPTY >
<!ELEMENT last EMPTY >
<!ELEMENT before href >
<!ELEMENT after href >
<!ELEMENT options (refintegrityoptions | orderingoptions)+ >
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<!ELEMENT orderingoptions ( (#PCDATA)+ | EMPTY) >
<!--============= Property Elements from Section 0 ==================-->
<!ELEMENT orderingtype (unordered | custom | href) >
Expires April 15, 2000
Slein et al. Page 22
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