[mdx] Joe on section 2.6

[Ian Young]

Joe asked:

> -- 2.6, Base URL: does the base URL terminate with a / ? If no
>   trailing slash is specified, is one imputed/supplied?

Leif:

> I think we should mandate a trailing slash but also say that servers
> SHOULD NOT assume that the client does the right thing - i.e the
> normal stability paradigm (be conservative in what you send etc).

In fact, the way the "Request" section was written, it implicitly mandated *not* having a trailing slash on the base URL. People have pointed out a number of other lack-of-clarity problems in that section as well, so I have rewritten it as follows:

> A metadata query request is performed by issuing an HTTP GET request
>    to a URL constructed as a concatenation of the following components:
> 
>    o  The responder's base URL.
> 
>    o  A single "/" character, unless the base URL already ends in a "/".
> 
>    o  The string "entities/"
> 
>    o  At least one URL-encoded identifier.  If more than one identifier
>       is present, they are separated by unencoded "+" characters.
> 
>    For example, with a base URL of "http://example.org/mdq", a query for
>    the identifier "foo" would be performed by an HTTP GET request to the
>    following URL:
> 
>    http://example.org/mdq/entities/foo

That's an instruction to the requester, of course. It therefore doesn't include Leif's suggestion of lax processing on the part of the responder, but I think it's clear enough that perhaps there's no need.

	-- Ian



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