Re: can a conditional header field put conditions on resources other than the target resource?

[Amos Jeffries <[e-mail]>]

On 26/01/2013 4:05 a.m., Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2013-01-25 15:58, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>> On Jan 25, 2013, at 6:46 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:
>>
>>> Looking at 
>>> <http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/wg/httpbis/draft-ietf-httpbis/latest/p4-conditional.html#precedence>:
>>>
>>> "... Other conditional request header fields, defined by extensions 
>>> to HTTP, might place conditions on the state of the target resource 
>>> in general, such as how the If header field in WebDAV has been 
>>> defined to make a request conditional on the presence or absence of 
>>> a lock [RFC4918]."
>>>
>>> Actually, "If", as defined in RFC 2518 and 4918 can put conditions 
>>> on resources other than the target resource, see the "Tagged-list" 
>>> production in 
>>> <http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc4918.html#if.header.syntax>) -- 
>>> should we rephrase P4 accordingly?
>>
>> WTF? (and I just love the last paragraph in that section)
>
> That just states that RFC 2518 got the syntax wrong (relatively 
> politely).

But the above wording implies that future ones MAY do so if they please 
as well.

Is that a desirable implication?

Amos