RE: Clarification of URI vs. resource

Larry Masinter writes:
> Urk! That wasn't what I was complaining about. The requirement I
> don't understand is the requirement that a resource not appear
> twice in a collection. I don't understand the reason for the requirement.
> If I understood the reason for the requirement, then I might know
> why it should be OK for the same 'resource' to appear in a collection
> twice if that resource is named with different URLs.
The requirement is intended to be: the same *URL* cannot appear more than
once in the same collection. Multiple instances of the same *resource* are
allowed.
One rationale for this requirement is to avoid having to have "instance"
identifiers for each URL in a collection, and to avoid handling ordering
issues in the base specification.
The other rationale for this requirement is that having multiple instances
of the same URL in a collection just didn't make sense. For example,
assuming multiple instances of the same URL are allowed in a collection, if
there is a collection resource R, with URL
http://www.example.com/collection/, and it has members:
./hello.html
./logo.gif
./hello.html
That is, when accessed via URL http://www.example.com/collection/ the
absolute form of the URLs of these members is:
http://www.example.com/collection/hello.html
http://www.example.com/collection/logo.gif
http://www.example.com/collection/hello.html
What does it mean to have ./hello.html twice? How can one of these
duplicates be created? If one instance is deleted, the others must go away
as well (or leave a dangling member of collection). This issue of having
multiple instances of the same URL in a collection was discussed in the
advanced collections specification as well, and the decision was made there
too not to have multiple instances of the same URL in a collection.
- Jim

Received on Friday, 13 November 1998 12:34:48 UTC

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