[svn.haxx.se] · SVN Dev · SVN Users · SVN Org · TSVN Dev · TSVN Users · Subclipse Dev · Subclipse Users · this month's index

Re: Summary: URL rev proposals

From: Greg Stein <gstein_at_lyra.org>
Date: 2003-08-14 14:17:20 CEST

On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 06:42:07AM -0500, Luke Blanshard wrote:
> Greg Stein wrote:
>
> >The URLs that mod_dav_svn passes out are stable unless the administrator
> >goes in and monkeys it up by reconfiguring the SVNSpecialURI directive. It
> >could also change with a software upgrade (altho we have no intent to
> >change
> >them at this point).
>
> Is there some reason you guys chose this format over something standard,
> like http://path/to/repos;version/path/to/file?

WTF are you talking about? How is that "standard" ?!! You use a feature of
URIs, but that doesn't make it standard. The !svn form also uses standard
URI formats. Please explain... am I missing what you're saying?

> I don't see the need for this "special URI" thing.

We needed a whole slice of the URI namespace to contain the various types of
resources that SVN needs. It isn't just "this path at this revision"
resources that you're attempting to model above. We also need baseline
collections, activities, VCCs, etc. There is a bunch of stuff and the
parameterized URIs you're describing just wouldn't cut it.

> "What about semicolons in path names?" I hear you say. Well, as I
> understand it, semicolons are required to be escaped if they are part of
> the path. The whole point of the embedded semis is that they aren't
> escaped, and can thus be seen as special.

Sure, but I think it would have been a bit harder to model the various
resource types via parameters. The URI specification is also unclear on
whether the parameters identify distinct resources, or whether they are
intended as params to a single resource. (RFC 2396 is the document; note
that query strings are for input to a resource, rather than specifying a
distinct resource; but that changes in the next URI spec)

I'm also a bit leery of URI params after getting screwed back in 1996 by
proxies that didn't handle them properly.

In any case, the client cannot manufacture these special URIs, whether they
reside under !svn or whether you use params. So the model that the server
uses is actually quite irrelevant. Heck, we could switch to the param
version tomorrow if we wanted. It even might be a good thing to do to knock
it into people's heads they shouldn't write clients that presume certain URI
formats :-)

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@subversion.tigris.org
Received on Thu Aug 14 14:09:22 2003

This is an archived mail posted to the Subversion Dev mailing list.

This site is subject to the Apache Privacy Policy and the Apache Public Forum Archive Policy.