Re: [apps-discuss] Review of draft-ietf-appsawg-file-scheme

[Graham Klyne <[e-mail]>]

Dave,

(writing as a s/w dev who uses URIs a lot...)

I think the role of file: URIs is slightly unusual as a protocol element.  It 
appears in contexts where a network address may be used, but (in my experience) 
is mainly used to trigger local access.  So in an application that uses a URI 
like "http://example.org/somedata" to address some data on the web, it can also 
be really useful to be able to use "file:///somelocaldata" to tell the 
application to read a local file.  What I never use is a file URI to actually 
access data from another system (*).  So I don't think that interop of 
cross-system data access is the primary concern here.

BUT, there is one case where common interpretation and interop is really 
important, and that is relative URI reference resolution.  Something I commonly 
do is use relative references (e.g. "someplace/somedata") in my data, which may 
be hosted on a web server (e.g. "http://www.example.org/") or in a local file 
system ("file:///home/user/exampledata/").  What is important to me is that the 
relative reference resolves consistently in these situations.  E.g., for the 
examples given, to yield absolute addresses respectively of:

   http://www.example.org/someplace/somedata
and
   file:///home/user/exampledata/someplace/somedata

In the past, the problem has been that the local system quirks cause deviant 
behaviour (e.g. what happens if the base URI used is based on a Windows path, 
e.g. "C:/someuser/") - it is "edge cases" like this that have caused me 
difficulties in the past running software on different systems.

I believe that Matthew's draft, as currently structured, does usefully navigate 
this space between desired and widely implemented core functionality and 
likely-to-be-encountered quirks.  I would hope that by publishing this as a 
standard document, we will see programming language URI-handling library 
functions converge to provide the defined core behaviour.

#g
--

(*) other than a mounted network file system.



On 13/04/2016 09:28, Matthew Kerwin wrote:
>> >
>> >A file: construct should be of significant utility to the Internet
>> >community.  So it warrants careful community review and extensive
>> >indication of active support.  That is, there ought to be a basis for
>> >assessing the likelihood of implementation and use.  As of now, this is not
>> >possible.
>> >
>> >
> Technically it's already implemented in a bunch of places, not always
> entirely interoperably. Most of the non-interoperable parts are in the edge
> cases, but the "common core" is pretty universal. Since there's no
> (non-obsolete) spec that defines it, what I want to achieve with this draft
> -- if nothing else -- is to put that "common core" in a (non-obsolete) spec.
>
> If that just meant de-obsoleting RFC 1738 that would almost be enough
> (although an update might be in order.) However the discussion that started
> with that question has lead us to where we are now, with this draft.
>
> For what it's worth, at least one potential implementation is likely: the
> Ruby standard library OpenURI module, which was the original reason I
> started pursuing this in the first place (
> https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/8544)
>
>
>