Date:         Sun, 21 Dec 2003 05:57:35 -0500
Reply-To:     "Z39.50 Next-Generation Initiative" <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       "Z39.50 Next-Generation Initiative" <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Eliot Christian <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      base-url includes "?"
Comments: To: [log in to unmask]
In-Reply-To:  <3FE39E81.21788.A73E2B@localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 12:57 AM 12/20/2003 +0100, Theo van Veen wrote:
>Allthough it's a minor thing I would like the "?" being part of what we
>call the base-url.
>The reason for this is services can take (private) parameters as part of
>the base-url.
>IMO the SRU URL should be base-url + request rather than base-url +
>?request. It
>allows for example to use the database name as a parameter as part of the
>base-url.
>Anyway it gives more freedom to how the server is implemented and I don't
>think at
>interferes with other things.

I agree very strongly with Theo's point. I think this is common
practice, used for example in OpenGIS Consortium services such
as Web Mapping Service http://www.opengis.org/docs/01-068r3.pdf:

   6.2.2 HTTP GET

   An Online Resource URL intended for HTTP GET requests is in
   fact only a URL prefix to which additional parameters are
   appended in order to construct a valid Operation request.
   A URL prefix is defined as an opaque string including the
   protocol, hostname, optional port number, path, a question
   mark '? ', and, optionally, one or more server-specific
   parameters ending in an ampersand '& '. The prefix uniquely
   identifies the particular service instance. A client appends
   the necessary request parameters as name/ value pairs in the
   form "name= value&". The resulting URL shall be valid
   according to the HTTP Common Gateway Interface standard [CGI],
   which mandates the presence of '? ' before the sequence of
   query parameters and the '& ' between each parameter.

   The URL prefix shall end in either a '? ' (in the absence of
   additional server-specific parameters) or a '& '. In practice,
   however, Clients should be prepared to add a necessary trailing
   '? ' or '& ' before appending the Operation parameters defined
   in this specification in order to construct a valid request URL.


Eliot