[topicmapmail] Web Services

[Jan Algermissen]

Murray Altheim wrote:
> 
> Jan Algermissen wrote:
> > Christoph Froehlich wrote:
> >
> >>Panckoucke is currently used to feed presentation engines. Since some
> >>time, I wonder, if it shouldn't be possible to define the model in a way
> >>that roundtripping could be done. This would allow us to build editors
> >>based upon the panckoucke abstract model.
> >
> > Regarding my last mail: if a given topic map lives at
> >
> > http://www.example.org/topicmaps/xmltools
> >
> >
> > it makes perfect sense (from a REST POV) to POST XTM (or whatever)
> > to the map to add information.
> >
> > You can even create (PUT) and erase (DELETE) maps via HTTP.
> >
> > One might use
> >
> > DELETE http://www.example.org/topicmaps/xmltools/topics/7763 HTTP/1.0
> >
> > to delete a certain topic or
> >
> > POST http://www.example.org/topicmaps/xmltools/topics/7763 HTTP/1.0
> > Content-type: application/xtm+xml
> > Content-length: xxx
> > [blank line]
> > <topicMap>
> >   <topic id="foo">
> >      <baseName>....</baseName>
> >    </topic>
> > </topicMap>
> >
> > to add a basename to a particular topic.
> 
> Jan,
> 
> Since you're actually dealing with XTM directly and not Topic Maps
> as a more abstract idea, how do you deal with the issue of the ID
> namespace? 


Currently I see them as being only 'valid' during the deserialisation process
and will throw them away afterwards.

Hmm...maybe an HTTP 'Expires: never'   or  'Vary: never'  would be an
indicator to not throw them away....I am not settled on this one.


Do people have to be aware of the list of IDs, or does
> the system just fail when either an expected ID isn't there, or
> when an inserted ID fails because it's already in use (or there is
> an error because of that ID). 

IMHO using element IDs for other referencing purposes than for reconstructing
the serialized graph are a bad choice anyway (as are PSIs that contain fragment
identifiers) due to the limitations they introduce when used over HTTP....


There may be other XML issues, but
> I'm guessing some are fairly easy to deal with (such as requiring
> all incoming and outgoing content be in UTF-8).

Why that? Isn't the encoding attribute/HTTP header part only a hint
for the processing application? What do you mean?


Jan

> 
> Murray
> 
> ......................................................................
> Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
> Knowledge Media Institute
> The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .
> 
>    [...] all matters of authority and responsibility are ultimately
>    matters of social practice, and never matters of ontology (that
>    is, never just a matter of how things in fact are in the nonhuman
>    world). [...] just as we should not look to ground our moral
>    judgments in the nonhuman authority of a god, so we should not
>    look to ground our empirical judgments in the nonhuman authority
>    of an external world.                          -- Robert Brandom
>    http://www.tilgher.it/brandom.html

-- 
Jan Algermissen                           http://www.topicmapping.com
Consultant & Programmer	                  http://www.gooseworks.org