Subject: Please check this on your WebDAV server! (was: WebDAV Bindings - Issue Yaron.NoSlash)

From: "Clemm, Geoff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 16:55:41 -0500

In section 5.2 of RFC 2518, it is stated that:

   if a client invokes a
   method on http://foo.bar/blah (no trailing slash), the resource
   http://foo.bar/blah/ (trailing slash) may respond as if the operation
   were invoked on it

The authors of the Bindings proposal are proposing to strengthen this
statement to say that a server MUST ignore the trailing slash, i.e. the
URL http://xxx and the URL http://xxx/ MUST identify the same resource.

This note is intended to verify that this will not cause an unacceptable
interoperation problem for current WebDAV implementations (or more simply,
is this change OK).

I personally have confirmed that the Microsoft IIS WebDAV server,
the Apache mod_dav WebDAV server, and the Sharemation WebDAV server
all ignore the trailing slash.

I would appreciate if the authors or users of any other WebDAV server
could let me know whether:
- their server already acts this way
- whether it would be acceptable to them to change their server to act this
way
- whether they would object to this change.

Thankyou!
Geoff 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Yaron Goland

...
Option 2 - Keep the current language but add a note specifically stating
 that you are violating RFC 2518 and, on the mailing list, provide a
 listing of existing WebDAV client/server implementations and see if
 any of them actually differentiate resources based on the trailing slash.
 If the answer (as I suspect) is that no one differentiates based on the
 trailing "/" then I think we have the basis for declaring consensus on
 the change. However, if the authors fail to perform this analysis then
 I believe the chair MUST strike down the BIND draft by declaring that
 in the absence of such an analysis it is impossible to declare a
 consensus on the issue of upgrading the SHOULD to a MUST. We can't
 use silence as a sign of assent on such a serious change.
I move that we force the authors with threats of jeering and paying
 for every IETF dinner from here to eternity to adopt Option 2 and
 free us from the nonsense of the trailing slash.
                        Yaron 
P.S. The requirement that http://foo/blah/ and http://foo/blah point to the
same resource would ONLY apply to WebDAV compliant resources. So we are not
changing 2616. We are only saying "If you voluntarily choose to support
WebDAV THEN you must follow this rule." That way the only spec that needs to
change is 2518, NOT 2616. That having been said, I would LOVE to get 2616
changed to say this as well but I don't have enough free time on my hands to
push for this change to 2616.

---

From: Jim Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 01:14:24 -0800

>- whether they would object to this change.

It either would not affect the pydav server (the one I did at Xerox, not
the one from germany)  or I'd make the change.