[jcifs] Re: directory must end with '/'

[Christopher R. Hertel]

On Thu, Dec 09, 2004 at 10:18:07AM +0100, Julian Reschke wrote:
> Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> >...
> >I think (once again) that this is why HTTP creates the semantic
> >distinction and adds the empty path segment (that is, the trailing slash)
> >to a directory name.
> >...
> 
> Where do you get this impression from?

You're right.  It's clearly not part of the protocol.  There is, however,
a convention which says that if the URL received by the web server
resolves to a directory on the server side, then the URL should be
"corrected" by adding a slash.  The "corrected" URL is then sent back to
the client via the redirect, as you describe below.

So... those semantics do exist (somewhere) and they are handled--by
convention--by adding the slash.

Does that description make sense?

> As far as I can tell, RFC2616 
> doesn't even have a defined concept for a directory. Why would it, as 
> there are no RFC2616-methods for which it would make a difference?

I should mention that under SMB there is the concept of a directory.  

> If an existing HTTP server sends a redirect upon accessing a directory, 
> that is an *implementation detail* (that's required to make relative 
> references work). It has nothing to do with the protocol itself.

Yep.  I got it.

> Some more pointers:
> 
> RFC2518 (<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2518.html>) defines 
> collections (and does *not* explicitly require trailing slashes on 
> collections)

I'll have to take a look at this and RFC 2616 when I get a chance.

> RFC2396bis 
> (<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-fielding-uri-rfc2396bis-07.html>) 
> obsoletes RFC2396.

Yeah, I was aware they were working on this.  It's still a draft, but 
there's an IETF coming up in a few months near my home so I'll probably be 
going and should be up on this.

Thanks!

Chris -)-----

-- 
"Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem" ISBN: 013047116X
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/    -)-----   crh at ubiqx.org