Re: HTTP at a glance

[Julian Reschke <[e-mail]>]

On 2012-02-28 23:16, Amos Jeffries wrote:
> On 29.02.2012 07:31, Martin Thomson wrote:
>> On 27 February 2012 13:23, Roy T. Fielding <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> No, POST can create resources.  The only difference is that the
>>> client doesn't
>>> know how the resource(s) will be identified after being created.
>>
>> And some of us really like having some control over our own URI space,
>> preferring this approach over PUT. I wouldn't characterize that as a
>> mistake, just a choice.
>
>
> The blessed way to do that is with a 3xx redirect instructing the client
> where you want the resource PUT if they somehow get it wrong. (Or just

I wouldn't call it "the blessed way". In particular, automatically 
following a redirect upon PUT might be dangerous.

> plain denying wrong PUT if you dont want third-party scripts using PUT
> on your site.)

Yes. If you want to control the URI space, simply do not implement 
PUT-for-create.

> Yes, I too see a bandwidth problem with that blessed way of doing
> things. Perhapse what is needed is a response indicating "okay, but
> change the URI to X" which does not involve a repeated PUT action. The
> plain PUT+200 sequence seems not to do that easily (workable ideas
> welcome. With my web-dev hat on I have an interest in implementing).

So you want PUT semantics with server-chooses-URI? I tried to specify 
this a few years ago 
(http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-http-addmember-latest.html) 
but was "convinced" that POST is sufficient, so defined the 
WebDAV-specific RFC 5995.

Best regards, Julian