Architecture of The World Wide Web, Volume One

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Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One
ArchitectureoftheWorldWideWeb,Volume One
W3CRecommendation15December2004
Thisversion: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECwebarch20041215/ Latestversion: http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/ Previousversion: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/PRwebarch20041105/ Editors: IanJacobs,W3C NormanWalsh,SunMicrosystems,Inc. Authors: Seeacknowledgments(8). Pleaserefertotheerrataforthisdocument,whichmayincludesomenormative corrections. Seealsotranslations.
Copyright20022004W3C(MIT,ERCIM,Keio),AllRightsReserved.W3Cliability,trademark, documentuseandsoftwarelicensingrulesapply.Yourinteractionswiththissiteareinaccordance withourpublicandMemberprivacystatements.
Abstract
TheWorldWideWebusesrelativelysimpletechnologieswithsufficientscalability, efficiencyandutilitythattheyhaveresultedinaremarkableinformationspaceof interrelatedresources,growingacrosslanguages,cultures,andmedia.Inaneffort topreservethesepropertiesoftheinformationspaceasthetechnologiesevolve, thisarchitecturedocumentdiscussesthecoredesigncomponentsoftheWeb. Theyareidentificationofresources,representationofresourcestate,andthe protocolsthatsupporttheinteractionbetweenagentsandresourcesinthespace. Werelatecoredesigncomponents,constraints,andgoodpracticestothe principlesandpropertiestheysupport.
Statusofthisdocument
Thissectiondescribesthestatusofthisdocumentatthetimeofitspublication.
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Otherdocumentsmaysupersedethisdocument.AlistofcurrentW3Cpublications andthelatestrevisionofthistechnicalreportcanbefoundintheW3Ctechnical reportsindexathttp://www.w3.org/TR/. Thisisthe15December2004RecommendationofArchitectureoftheWorldWide Web,VolumeOne.ThisdocumenthasbeenreviewedbyW3CMembers,by softwaredevelopers,andbyotherW3Cgroupsandinterestedparties,andis endorsedbytheDirectorasaW3CRecommendation.Itisastabledocumentand maybeusedasreferencematerialorcitedfromanotherdocument.W3C'srolein makingtheRecommendationistodrawattentiontothespecificationandto promoteitswidespreaddeployment.Thisenhancesthefunctionalityand interoperabilityoftheWeb. ThisdocumentwasdevelopedbyW3C'sTechnicalArchitectureGroup(TAG), which,bychartermaintainsalistofarchitecturalissues.Thescopeofthis documentisausefulsubsetofthoseissuesitisnotintendedtoaddressallof them.TheTAGintendstoaddresstheremaining(andfuture)issuesnowthat VolumeOneispublishedasaW3CRecommendation.Acompletehistoryof changessothisdocumentisavailable.Pleasesendcommentsonthisdocumentto publicwebarchcomments@w3.org(publicarchiveofpublicwebarchcomments). TAGtechnicaldiscussiontakesplaceonwwwtag@w3.org(publicarchiveof wwwtag). ThisdocumentwasproducedundertheW3CIPRpolicyoftheJuly2001Process Document.TheTAGmaintainsapubliclistofpatentdisclosuresrelevanttothis documentthatpagealsoincludesinstructionsfordisclosingapatent.Anindividual whohasactualknowledgeofapatentwhichtheindividualbelievescontains EssentialClaim(s)withrespecttothisspecificationshoulddisclosetheinformation inaccordancewithsection6oftheW3CPatentPolicy.
TableofContents
1.Introduction 1.1.AboutthisDocument 1.1.1.AudienceofthisDocument 1.1.2.ScopeofthisDocument 1.1.3.Principles,Constraints,andGoodPracticeNotes 2.Identification 2.1.BenefitsofURIs 2.2.URI/ResourceRelationships 2.2.1.URIcollision 2.2.2.URIallocation 2.2.3.IndirectIdentification 2.3.URIComparisons 2.3.1.URIaliases 2.3.2.Representationreuse 2.4.URISchemes 2.4.1.URISchemeRegistration 2.5.URIOpacity 2.6.FragmentIdentifiers 2.7.FutureDirectionsforIdentifiers 2.7.1.Internationalizedidentifiers 2.7.2.AssertionthattwoURIsidentifythesameresource 3.Interaction
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3.1.UsingaURItoAccessaResource 3.1.1.Detailsofretrievingarepresentation 3.2.RepresentationTypesandInternetMediaTypes 3.2.1.Representationtypesandfragmentidentifiersemantics 3.2.2.Fragmentidentifiersandcontentnegotiation 3.3.InconsistenciesbetweenRepresentationDataandMetadata 3.4.SafeInteractions 3.4.1.Unsafeinteractionsandaccountability 3.5.RepresentationManagement 3.5.1.URIpersistence 3.5.2.Linkingandaccesscontrol 3.5.3.SupportingNavigation 3.6.FutureDirectionsforInteraction 4.DataFormats 4.1.BinaryandTextualDataFormats 4.2.VersioningandExtensibility 4.2.1.Versioning 4.2.2.VersioningandXMLnamespacepolicy 4.2.3.Extensibility 4.2.4.Compositionofdataformats 4.3.SeparationofContent,Presentation,andInteraction 4.4.Hypertext 4.4.1.URIreferences 4.5.XMLBasedDataFormats 4.5.1.WhentouseanXMLbasedformat 4.5.2.LinksinXML 4.5.3.XMLnamespaces 4.5.4.Namespacedocuments 4.5.5.QNamesinXML 4.5.6.XMLIDsemantics 4.5.7.MediatypesforXML 4.5.8.FragmentidentifiersinXML 4.6.FutureDirectionsforDataFormats 5.GeneralArchitecturePrinciples 5.1.OrthogonalSpecifications 5.2.Extensibility 5.3.ErrorHandling 5.4.ProtocolbasedInteroperability 6.Glossary 7.References 7.1.ArchitecturalSpecifications 8.Acknowledgments
ListofPrinciples,Constraints,andGoodPracticeNotes
Thefollowingprinciples,constraints,andgoodpracticenotesarediscussedinthis documentandlistedhereforconvenience.Thereisalsoafreestandingsummary. Identification GlobalIdentifiers(principle,2) IdentifywithURIs(practice,2.1) URIsIdentifyaSingleResource(constraint,2.2) AvoidingURIaliases(practice,2.3.1)
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ConsistentURIusage(practice,2.3.1) ReuseURIschemes(practice,2.4) URIopacity(practice,2.5) Interaction Reuserepresentationformats(practice,3.2) Datametadatainconsistency(constraint,3.3) Metadataassociation(practice,3.3) Saferetrieval(principle,3.4) Availablerepresentation(practice,3.5) Referencedoesnotimplydereference(principle,3.5) Consistentrepresentation(practice,3.5.1) DataFormats Versioninformation(practice,4.2.1) Namespacepolicy(practice,4.2.2) Extensibilitymechanisms(practice,4.2.3) Extensibilityconformance(practice,4.2.3) Unknownextensions(practice,4.2.3) Separationofcontent,presentation,interaction(practice,4.3) Linkidentification(practice,4.4) Weblinking(practice,4.4) GenericURIs(practice,4.4) Hypertextlinks(practice,4.4) Namespaceadoption(practice,4.5.3) Namespacedocuments(practice,4.5.4) QNamesIndistinguishablefromURIs(constraint,4.5.5) QNameMapping(practice,4.5.5) XMLand"text/*"(practice,4.5.7) XMLandcharacterencodings(practice,4.5.7) GeneralArchitecturePrinciples Orthogonality(principle,5.1) Errorrecovery(principle,5.3)
1.Introduction
TheWorldWideWeb(WWW,orsimplyWeb)isaninformationspaceinwhichthe itemsofinterest,referredtoasresources,areidentifiedbyglobalidentifierscalled UniformResourceIdentifiers(URI). Examplessuchasthefollowingtravelscenarioareusedthroughoutthisdocument toillustratetypicalbehaviorofWebagentspeopleorsoftwareactingonthis informationspace.Auseragentactsonbehalfofauser.Softwareagentsinclude servers,proxies,spiders,browsers,andmultimediaplayers.
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WhileplanningatriptoMexico,NadiareadsOaxacaweather information:'http://weather.example.com/oaxaca'inaglossytravel magazine.NadiahasenoughexperiencewiththeWebtorecognizethat "http://weather.example.com/oaxaca"isaURIandthatsheislikelytobe abletoretrieveassociatedinformationwithherWebbrowser.When NadiaenterstheURIintoherbrowser: 1. ThebrowserrecognizesthatwhatNadiatypedisaURI. 2. Thebrowserperformsaninformationretrievalactioninaccordance withitsconfiguredbehaviorforresourcesidentifiedviathe"http" URIscheme. 3. Theauthorityresponsiblefor"weather.example.com"provides informationinaresponsetotheretrievalrequest. 4. Thebrowserinterpretstheresponse,identifiedasXHTMLbythe server,andperformsadditionalretrievalactionsforinlinegraphics andothercontentasnecessary. 5. Thebrowserdisplaystheretrievedinformation,whichincludes hypertextlinkstootherinformation.Nadiacanfollowthese hypertextlinkstoretrieveadditionalinformation. ThisscenarioillustratesthethreearchitecturalbasesoftheWebthatarediscussed inthisdocument: 1. Identification(2).URIsareusedtoidentifyresources.Inthistravelscenario, theresourceisaperiodicallyupdatedreportontheweatherinOaxaca,and theURIishttp://weather.example.com/oaxaca. 2. Interaction(3).Webagentscommunicateusingstandardizedprotocolsthat enableinteractionthroughtheexchangeofmessageswhichadheretoa definedsyntaxandsemantics.ByenteringaURIintoaretrievaldialogor selectingahypertextlink,Nadiatellsherbrowsertoperformaretrievalaction fortheresourceidentifiedbytheURI.Inthisexample,thebrowsersendsan HTTPGETrequest(partoftheHTTPprotocol)totheserverat "weather.example.com",viaTCP/IPport80,andtheserversendsbacka messagecontainingwhatitdeterminestobearepresentationoftheresource asofthetimethatrepresentationwasgenerated.Notethatthisexampleis specifictohypertextbrowsingofinformationotherkindsofinteractionare possible,bothwithinbrowsersandthroughtheuseofothertypesofWeb agentourexampleisintendedtoillustrateonecommoninteraction,not definetherangeofpossibleinteractionsorlimitthewaysinwhichagents mightusetheWeb. 3. Formats(4).Mostprotocolsusedforrepresentationretrievaland/or submissionmakeuseofasequenceofoneormoremessages,whichtaken togethercontainapayloadofrepresentationdataandmetadata,totransfer therepresentationbetweenagents.Thechoiceofinteractionprotocolplaces limitsontheformatsofrepresentationdataandmetadatathatcanbe transmitted.HTTP,forexample,typicallytransmitsasingleoctetstreamplus metadata,andusesthe"ContentType"and"ContentEncoding"header fieldstofurtheridentifytheformatoftherepresentation.Inthisscenario,the representationtransferredisinXHTML,asidentifiedbythe"Contenttype" HTTPheaderfieldcontainingtheregisteredInternetmediatypename, "application/xhtml+xml".ThatInternetmediatypenameindicatesthatthe representationdatacanbeprocessedaccordingtotheXHTMLspecification.
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Nadia'sbrowserisconfiguredandprogrammedtointerpretthereceiptofan "application/xhtml+xml"typedrepresentationasaninstructiontorenderthe contentofthatrepresentationaccordingtotheXHTMLrenderingmodel, includinganysubsidiaryinteractions(suchasrequestsforexternalstyle sheetsorinlineimages)calledforbytherepresentation.Inthescenario,the XHTMLrepresentationdatareceivedfromtheinitialrequestinstructsNadia's browsertoalsoretrieveandrenderinlinetheweathermaps,eachidentified byaURIandthuscausinganadditionalretrievalaction,resultingin additionalrepresentationsthatareprocessedbythebrowseraccordingto theirowndataformats(e.g.,"application/svg+xml"indicatestheSVGdata format),andthisprocesscontinuesuntilallofthedataformatshavebeen rendered.Theresultofallofthisprocessing,oncethebrowserhasreached anapplicationsteadystatethatcompletesNadia'sinitialrequestedaction,is commonlyreferredtoasa"Webpage". Thefollowingillustrationshowstherelationshipbetweenidentifier,resource,and representation.
Intheremainderofthisdocument,wehighlightimportantarchitecturalpoints regardingWebidentifiers,protocols,andformats.Wealsodiscusssomeimportant generalarchitecturalprinciples(5)andhowtheyapplytotheWeb.

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1.1.AboutthisDocument
ThisdocumentdescribesthepropertieswedesireoftheWebandthedesign choicesthathavebeenmadetoachievethem.Itpromotesthereuseofexisting standardswhensuitable,andgivesguidanceonhowtoinnovateinamanner consistentwithWebarchitecture. ThetermsMUST,MUSTNOT,SHOULD,SHOULDNOT,andMAYareusedinthe principles,constraints,andgoodpracticenotesinaccordancewithRFC2119 [RFC2119]. Thisdocumentdoesnotincludeconformanceprovisionsforthesereasons: Conformingsoftwareisexpectedtobesodiversethatitwouldnotbeuseful tobeabletorefertotheclassofconformingsoftwareagents. Someofthegoodpracticenotesconcernpeoplespecificationsgenerally defineconformanceforsoftware,notpeople. Wedonotbelievethattheadditionofaconformancesectionislikelyto increasetheutilityofthedocument. 1.1.1.AudienceofthisDocument ThisdocumentisintendedtoinformdiscussionsaboutissuesofWebarchitecture. Theintendedaudienceforthisdocumentincludes: 1. ParticipantsinW3CActivities 2. Othergroupsandindividualsdesigningtechnologiestobeintegratedintothe Web 3. ImplementersofW3Cspecifications 4. Webcontentauthorsandpublishers Note:Thisdocumentdoesnotdistinguishinanyformalwaytheterms"language" and"format."Contextdetermineswhichtermisused.Thephrase"specification designer"encompasseslanguage,format,andprotocoldesigners. 1.1.2.ScopeofthisDocument ThisdocumentpresentsthegeneralarchitectureoftheWeb.Othergroupsinside andoutsideW3CalsoaddressspecializedaspectsofWebarchitecture,including accessibility,qualityassurance,internationalization,deviceindependence,and WebServices.ThesectiononArchitecturalSpecifications(7.1)includes referencestotheserelatedspecifications. Thisdocumentstrivesforabalancebetweenbrevityandprecisionwhileincluding illustrativeexamples.TAGfindingsareinformationaldocumentsthatcomplement thecurrentdocumentbyprovidingmoredetailaboutselectedtopics.This documentincludessomeexcerptsfromthefindings.Sincethefindingsevolve independently,thisdocumentincludesreferencestoapprovedTAGfindings.For otherTAGissuescoveredbythisdocumentbutwithoutanapprovedfinding, referencesaretoentriesintheTAGissueslist. Manyoftheexamplesinthisdocumentthatinvolvehumanactivitysupposethe familiarWebinteractionmodel(illustratedatthebeginningoftheIntroduction) whereapersonfollowsalinkviaauseragent,theuseragentretrievesand www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECwebarch20041215/#uribenefits presentsdata,theuserfollowsanotherlink,etc.Thisdocumentdoesnotdiscussin
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presentsdata,theuserfollowsanotherlink,etc.Thisdocumentdoesnotdiscussin anydetailotherinteractionmodelssuchasvoicebrowsing(see,forexample, [VOICEXML2]).Thechoiceofinteractionmodelmayhaveanimpactonexpected agentbehavior.Forinstance,whenagraphicaluseragentrunningonalaptop computerorhandhelddeviceencountersanerror,theuseragentcanreporterrors directlytotheuserthroughvisualandaudiocues,andpresenttheuserwith optionsforresolvingtheerrors.Ontheotherhand,whensomeoneisbrowsingthe Webthroughvoiceinputandaudioonlyoutput,stoppingthedialogtowaitforuser inputmayreduceusabilitysinceitissoeasyto"loseone'splace"whenbrowsing withonlyaudiooutput.Thisdocumentdoesnotdiscusshowtheprinciples, constraints,andgoodpracticesidentifiedhereapplyinallinteractioncontexts. 1.1.3.Principles,Constraints,andGoodPracticeNotes Theimportantpointsofthisdocumentarecategorizedasfollows: Principle Anarchitecturalprincipleisafundamentalrulethatappliestoalargenumber ofsituationsandvariables.Architecturalprinciplesinclude"separationof concerns","genericinterface","selfdescriptivesyntax,""visiblesemantics," "networkeffect"(Metcalfe'sLaw),andAmdahl'sLaw:"Thespeedofasystem islimitedbyitsslowestcomponent." Constraint InthedesignoftheWeb,somechoices,likethenamesofthep andl i elementsinHTML,thechoiceofthecolon(:)characterinURIs,orgrouping bitsintoeightbitunits(octets),aresomewhatarbitraryifp a r a g r a p h hadbeen choseninsteadofp orasterisk(*)insteadofcolon,thelargescaleresult would,mostlikely,havebeenthesame.Thisdocumentfocusesonmore fundamentaldesignchoices:designchoicesthatleadtoconstraints,i.e., restrictionsinbehaviororinteractionwithinthesystem.Constraintsmaybe imposedfortechnical,policy,orotherreasonstoachievedesirableproperties inthesystem,suchasaccessibility,globalscope,relativeeaseofevolution, efficiency,anddynamicextensibility. Goodpractice Goodpracticebysoftwaredevelopers,contentauthors,sitemanagers, users,andspecificationdesignersincreasesthevalueoftheWeb.
2.Identification
Inordertocommunicateinternally,acommunityagrees(toareasonableextent)on asetoftermsandtheirmeanings.OnegoaloftheWeb,sinceitsinception,has beentobuildaglobalcommunityinwhichanypartycanshareinformationwithany otherparty.Toachievethisgoal,theWebmakesuseofasingleglobal identificationsystem:theURI.URIsareacornerstoneofWebarchitecture, providingidentificationthatiscommonacrosstheWeb.TheglobalscopeofURIs promoteslargescale"networkeffects":thevalueofanidentifierincreasesthemore itisusedconsistently(forexample,themoreitisusedinhypertextlinks(4.4)).
Principle:GlobalIdentifiers Globalnamingleadstoglobalnetworkeffects.
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ThisprincipledatesbackatleastasfarasDouglasEngelbart'sseminalworkon openhypertextsystemsseesectionEveryObjectAddressablein[Eng90].
2.1.BenefitsofURIs
Thechoiceofsyntaxforglobalidentifiersissomewhatarbitraryitistheirglobal scopethatisimportant.TheUniformResourceIdentifier,[URI],hasbeen successfullydeployedsincethecreationoftheWeb.Therearesubstantialbenefits toparticipatingintheexistingnetworkofURIs,includinglinking,bookmarking, caching,andindexingbysearchengines,andtherearesubstantialcoststo creatinganewidentificationsystemthathasthesamepropertiesasURIs.
Goodpractice:IdentifywithURIs TobenefitfromandincreasethevalueoftheWorldWideWeb,agents shouldprovideURIsasidentifiersforresources. AresourceshouldhaveanassociatedURIifanotherpartymightreasonablywant tocreateahypertextlinktoit,makeorrefuteassertionsaboutit,retrieveorcachea representationofit,includeallorpartofitbyreferenceintoanotherrepresentation, annotateit,orperformotheroperationsonit.Softwaredevelopersshouldexpect thatsharingURIsacrossapplicationswillbeuseful,evenifthatutilityisnotinitially evident.TheTAGfinding"URIs,Addressability,andtheuseofHTTPGETand POST"discussesadditionalbenefitsandconsiderationsofURIaddressability. Note:SomeURIschemes(suchasthe"ftp"URIschemespecification)usethe term"designate"wherethisdocumentuses"identify."
2.2.URI/ResourceRelationships
BydesignaURIidentifiesoneresource.Wedonotlimitthescopeofwhatmightbe aresource.Theterm"resource"isusedinageneralsenseforwhatevermightbe identifiedbyaURI.ItisconventionalonthehypertextWebtodescribeWebpages, images,productcatalogs,etc.asresources.Thedistinguishingcharacteristicof theseresourcesisthatalloftheiressentialcharacteristicscanbeconveyedina message.Weidentifythissetasinformationresources. Thisdocumentisanexampleofaninformationresource.Itconsistsofwordsand punctuationsymbolsandgraphicsandotherartifactsthatcanbeencoded,with varyingdegreesoffidelity,intoasequenceofbits.Thereisnothingaboutthe essentialinformationcontentofthisdocumentthatcannotinprinciplebetransfered inamessage.Inthecaseofthisdocument,themessagepayloadisthe representationofthisdocument. However,ouruseofthetermresourceisintentionallymorebroad.Otherthings, suchascarsanddogs(and,ifyou'veprintedthisdocumentonphysicalsheetsof paper,theartifactthatyouareholdinginyourhand),areresourcestoo.Theyare notinformationresources,however,becausetheiressenceisnotinformation. Althoughitispossibletodescribeagreatmanythingsaboutacaroradogina sequenceofbits,thesumofthosethingswillinvariablybeanapproximationofthe
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essentialcharacteroftheresource. Wedefinetheterminformationresourcebecauseweobservethatitisusefulin discussionsofWebtechnologyandmaybeusefulinconstructingspecificationsfor facilitiesbuiltforuseontheWeb.
Constraint:URIsIdentifyaSingleResource AssigndistinctURIstodistinctresources. SincethescopeofaURIisglobal,theresourceidentifiedbyaURIdoesnot dependonthecontextinwhichtheURIappears(seealsothesectionabout indirectidentification(2.2.3)). [URI]isanagreementabouthowtheInternetcommunityallocatesnamesand associatesthemwiththeresourcestheyidentify.URIsaredividedintoschemes (2.4)thatdefine,viatheirschemespecification,themechanismbywhichscheme specificidentifiersareassociatedwithresources.Forexample,the"http"URI scheme([RFC2616])usesDNSandTCPbasedHTTPserversforthepurposeof identifierallocationandresolution.Asaresult,identifierssuchas "http://example.com/somepath#someFrag"oftentakeonmeaningthroughthe communityexperienceofperforminganHTTPGETrequestontheidentifierand,if givenasuccessfulresponse,interpretingtheresponseasarepresentationofthe identifiedresource.(SeealsoFragmentIdentifiers(2.6).)Ofcourse,aretrieval actionlikeGETisnottheonlywaytoobtaininformationaboutaresource.One mightalsopublishadocumentthatpurportstodefinethemeaningofaparticular URI.Theseothersourcesofinformationmaysuggestmeaningsforsuchidentifiers, butit'salocalpolicydecisionwhetherthosesuggestionsshouldbeheeded. Justasonemightwishtorefertoapersonbydifferentnames(byfullname,first nameonly,sportsnickname,romanticnickname,andsoforth),Webarchitecture allowstheassociationofmorethanoneURIwitharesource.URIsthatidentifythe sameresourcearecalledURIaliases.ThesectiononURIaliases(2.3.1) discussessomeofthepotentialcostsofcreatingmultipleURIsforthesame resource. Severalsectionsofthisdocumentaddressquestionsabouttherelationship betweenURIsandresources,including: HowmuchcanItellaboutaresourcebyinspectionofaURIthatidentifiesit? SeethesectionsonURIschemes(2.4)andURIopacity(2.5). WhodetermineswhatresourceaURIidentifies?SeethesectiononURI allocation(2.2.2). CantheresourceidentifiedbyaURIchangeovertime?Seethesectionson URIpersistence(3.5.1)andrepresentationmanagement(3.5). SincemorethanoneURIcanidentifythesameresource,howdoIknow whichURIsidentifythesameresource?SeethesectionsonURIcomparison (2.3)andassertionsthattwoURIsidentifythesameresource(2.7.2). 2.2.1.URIcollision
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Bydesign,aURIidentifiesoneresource.UsingthesameURItodirectlyidentify differentresourcesproducesaURIcollision.Collisionoftenimposesacostin communicationduetotheeffortrequiredtoresolveambiguities. Suppose,forexample,thatoneorganizationmakesuseofaURItorefertothe movieTheSting,andanotherorganizationusesthesameURItorefertoa discussionforumaboutTheSting.Toathirdparty,awareofbothorganizations, thiscollisioncreatesconfusionaboutwhattheURIidentifies,underminingthe valueoftheURI.Ifonewantedtotalkaboutthecreationdateoftheresource identifiedbytheURI,forinstance,itwouldnotbeclearwhetherthismeant"when themoviewascreated"or"whenthediscussionforumaboutthemoviewas created." SocialandtechnicalsolutionshavebeendevisedtohelpavoidURIcollision. However,thesuccessorfailureofthesedifferentapproachesdependsonthe extenttowhichthereisconsensusintheInternetcommunityonabidingbythe definingspecifications. ThesectiononURIallocation(2.2.2)examinesapproachesforestablishingthe authoritativesourceofinformationaboutwhatresourceaURIidentifies. URIsaresometimesusedforindirectidentification(2.2.3).Thisdoesnot necessarilyleadtocollisions. 2.2.2.URIallocation URIallocationistheprocessofassociatingaURIwitharesource.Allocationcan beperformedbothbyresourceownersandbyotherparties.Itisimportanttoavoid URIcollision(2.2.1). 2.2.2.1.URIownership URIownershipisarelationbetweenaURIandasocialentity,suchasaperson, organization,orspecification.URIownershipgivestherelevantsocialentitycertain rights,including: 1. topassonownershipofsomeorallownedURIstoanotherowner delegationand 2. toassociatearesourcewithanownedURIURIallocation. Bysocialconvention,URIownershipisdelegatedfromtheIANAURIscheme registry[IANASchemes],itselfasocialentity,toIANAregisteredURIscheme specifications.SomeURIschemespecificationsfurtherdelegateownershipto subordinateregistriesortoothernominatedowners,whomayfurtherdelegate ownership.Inthecaseofaspecification,ownershipultimatelylieswiththe communitythatmaintainsthespecification. Theapproachtakenforthe"http"URIscheme,forexample,followsthepattern wherebytheInternetcommunitydelegatesauthority,viatheIANAURIscheme registryandtheDNS,overasetofURIswithacommonprefixtooneparticular owner.OneconsequenceofthisapproachistheWeb'sheavyrelianceonthe centralDNSregistry.AdifferentapproachistakenbytheURNSyntaxscheme [RFC2141]whichdelegatesownershipofportionsofURNspacetoURN NamespacespecificationswhichthemselvesareregisteredinanIANAmaintained
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registryofURNNamespaceIdentifiers. URIownersareresponsibleforavoidingtheassignmentofequivalentURIsto multipleresources.Thus,ifaURIschemespecificationdoesprovideforthe delegationofindividualororganizedsetsofURIs,itshouldtakepainstoensure thatownershipultimatelyresidesinthehandsofasinglesocialentity.Allowing multipleownersincreasesthelikelihoodofURIcollisions. URIownersmayorganizeordeployinfrastruturetoensurethatrepresentationsof associatedresourcesareavailableand,whereappropriate,interactionwiththe resourceispossiblethroughtheexchangeofrepresentations.Therearesocial expectationsforresponsiblerepresentationmanagement(3.5)byURIowners. AdditionalsocialimplicationsofURIownershiparenotdiscussedhere. SeeTAGissuesiteData36,whichconcernstheexpropriationofnamingauthority. 2.2.2.2.Otherallocationschemes Someschemesusetechniquesotherthandelegatedownershiptoavoidcollision. Forexample,thespecificationforthedataURL(sic)scheme[RFC2397]specifies thattheresourceidentifiedbyadataschemeURIhasonlyonepossible representation.TherepresentationdatamakesuptheURIthatidentifiesthat resource.Thus,thespecificationitselfdetermineshowdataURIsareallocatedno delegationispossible. Otherschemes(suchas"news:comp.text.xml")relyonasocialprocess. 2.2.3.IndirectIdentification TosaythattheURI"mailto:nadia@example.com"identifiesbothanInternet mailboxandNadia,theperson,introducesaURIcollision.However,wecanuse theURItoindirectlyidentifyNadia.Identifiersarecommonlyusedinthisway. Listeningtoanewsbroadcast,onemighthearareportonBritainthatbegins, "Today,10DowningStreetannouncedaseriesofneweconomicmeasures." Generally,"10DowningStreet"identifiestheofficialresidenceofBritain'sPrime Minister.Inthiscontext,thenewsreporterisusingit(asEnglishrhetoricallows)to indirectlyidentifytheBritishgovernment.Similarly,URIsidentifyresources,but theycanalsobeusedinmanyconstructstoindirectlyidentifyotherresources. GloballyadoptedassignmentpoliciesmakesomeURIsappealingasgeneral purposeidentifiers.Localpolicyestablisheswhattheyindirectlyidentify. Supposethatn a d i a @ e x a m p l e . c o m isNadia'semailaddress.Theorganizersofa conferenceNadiaattendsmightuse"mailto:nadia@example.com"torefer indirectlytoher(e.g.,byusingtheURIasadatabasekeyintheirdatabaseof conferenceparticipants).ThisdoesnotintroduceaURIcollision.
2.3.URIComparisons
URIsthatareidentical,characterbycharacter,refertothesameresource.Since WebArchitectureallowstheassociationofmultipleURIswithagivenresource, twoURIsthatarenotcharacterbycharacteridenticalmaystillrefertothesame resource.DifferentURIsdonotnecessarilyrefertodifferentresourcesbutthereis
generallyahighercomputationalcosttodeterminethatdifferentURIsrefertothe
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generallyahighercomputationalcosttodeterminethatdifferentURIsrefertothe sameresource. Toreducetheriskofafalsenegative(i.e.,anincorrectconclusionthattwoURIsdo notrefertothesameresource)orafalsepositive(i.e.,anincorrectconclusionthat twoURIsdorefertothesameresource),somespecificationsdescribeequivalence testsinadditiontocharacterbycharactercomparison.Agentsthatreach conclusionsbasedoncomparisonsthatarenotlicensedbytherelevant specificationstakeresponsibilityforanyproblemsthatresultseethesectionon errorhandling(5.3)formoreinformationaboutresponsiblebehaviorwhen reachingunlicensedconclusions.Section6of[URI]providesmoreinformation aboutcomparingURIsandreducingtheriskoffalsenegativesandpositives. SeealsotheassertionthattwoURIsidentifythesameresource(2.7.2). 2.3.1.URIaliases Althoughtherearebenefits(suchasnamingflexibility)toURIaliases,thereare alsocosts.URIaliasesareharmfulwhentheydividetheWebofrelatedresources. AcorollaryofMetcalfe'sPrinciple(the"networkeffect")isthatthevalueofagiven resourcecanbemeasuredbythenumberandvalueofotherresourcesinits networkneighborhood,thatis,theresourcesthatlinktoit. TheproblemwithaliasesisthatifhalfoftheneighborhoodpointstooneURIfora givenresource,andtheotherhalfpointstoasecond,differentURIforthatsame resource,theneighborhoodisdivided.Notonlyisthealiasedresource undervaluedbecauseofthissplit,theentireneighborhoodofresourceslosesvalue becauseofthemissingsecondorderrelationshipsthatshouldhaveexistedamong thereferringresourcesbyvirtueoftheirreferencestothealiasedresource.
Goodpractice:AvoidingURIaliases AURIownerSHOULDNOTassociatearbitrarilydifferentURIswiththe sameresource. URIconsumersalsohavearoleinensuringURIconsistency.Forinstance,when transcribingaURI,agentsshouldnotgratuitouslypercentencodecharacters.The term"character"referstoURIcharactersasdefinedinsection2of[URI]percent encodingisdiscussedinsection2.1ofthatspecification.
Goodpractice:ConsistentURIusage AnagentthatreceivesaURISHOULDrefertotheassociatedresource usingthesameURI,characterbycharacter. WhenaURIaliasdoesbecomecommoncurrency,theURIownershoulduse protocoltechniquessuchasserversideredirectstorelatethetworesources.The communitybenefitswhentheURIownersupportsredirectionofanaliasedURIto

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thecorresponding"official"URI.Formoreinformationonredirection,seesection 10.3,Redirection,in[RFC2616].Seealso[CHIPS]foradiscussionofsomebest practicesforserveradministrators. 2.3.2.Representationreuse URIaliasingonlyoccurswhenmorethanoneURIisusedtoidentifythesame resource.Thefactthatdifferentresourcessometimeshavethesamerepresentation doesnotmaketheURIsforthoseresourcesaliases.
Story DirkwouldliketoaddalinkfromhisWebsitetotheOaxacaweather site.HeusestheURIhttp://weather.example.com/oaxacaandlabelshis linkreportonweatherinOaxacaon1August2004.Nadiapointsoutto DirkthatheissettingmisleadingexpectationsfortheURIhehasused. TheOaxacaweathersitepolicyisthattheURIinquestionidentifiesa reportonthecurrentweatherinOaxacaonanygivendayandnotthe weatheron1August.Ofcourse,onthefirstofAugustin2004,Dirk'slink willbecorrect,buttherestofthetimehewillbemisleadingreaders. NadiapointsouttoDirkthatthemanagersoftheOaxacaweathersitedo makeavailableadifferentURIpermanentlyassignedtoaresource reportingontheweatheron1August2004. Inthisstory,therearetworesources:areportonthecurrentweatherinOaxaca andareportontheweatherinOaxacaon1August2004.Themanagersofthe OaxacaweathersiteassigntwoURIstothesetwodifferentresources.On 1August2004,therepresentationsfortheseresourcesareidentical.Thatfactthat dereferencingtwodifferentURIsproducesidenticalrepresentationsdoesnotimply thatthetwoURIsarealiases.
2.4.URISchemes
IntheURI"http://weather.example.com/",the"http"thatappearsbeforethecolon (":")namesaURIscheme.EachURIschemehasaspecificationthatexplainsthe schemespecificdetailsofhowschemeidentifiersareallocatedandbecome associatedwitharesource.TheURIsyntaxisthusafederatedandextensible namingsystemwhereineachscheme'sspecificationmayfurtherrestrictthesyntax andsemanticsofidentifierswithinthatscheme. ExamplesofURIsfromvariousschemesinclude: mailto:joe@example.org ftp://example.org/aDirectory/aFile news:comp.infosystems.www tel:+18165551212 ldap://ldap.example.org/c=GB?objectClass?one urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog WhileWebarchitectureallowsthedefinitionofnewschemes,introducinganew schemeiscostly.ManyaspectsofURIprocessingareschemedependent,anda
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largeamountofdeployedsoftwarealreadyprocessesURIsofwellknown schemes.IntroducinganewURIschemerequiresthedevelopmentand deploymentnotonlyofclientsoftwaretohandlethescheme,butalsoofancillary agentssuchasgateways,proxies,andcaches.See[RFC2718]forother considerationsandcostsrelatedtoURIschemedesign. Becauseofthesecosts,ifaURIschemeexiststhatmeetstheneedsofan application,designersshoulduseitratherthaninventone.
Goodpractice:ReuseURIschemes AspecificationSHOULDreuseanexistingURIscheme(ratherthan createanewone)whenitprovidesthedesiredpropertiesofidentifiers andtheirrelationtoresources. Considerourtravelscenario:shouldtheagentprovidinginformationaboutthe weatherinOaxacaregisteranewURIscheme"weather"fortheidentificationof resourcesrelatedtotheweather?TheymightthenpublishURIssuchas "weather://travel.example.com/oaxaca".Whenasoftwareagentdereferencessuch aURI,ifwhatreallyhappensisthatHTTPGETisinvokedtoretrievea representationoftheresource,thenan"http"URIwouldhavesufficed. 2.4.1.URISchemeRegistration TheInternetAssignedNumbersAuthority(IANA)maintainsaregistry [IANASchemes]ofmappingsbetweenURIschemenamesandscheme specifications.Forinstance,theIANAregistryindicatesthatthe"http"schemeis definedin[RFC2616].TheprocessforregisteringanewURIschemeisdefinedin [RFC2717]. UnregisteredURIschemesSHOULDNOTbeusedforanumberofreasons: Thereisnogenerallyacceptedwaytolocatetheschemespecification. Someoneelsemaybeusingtheschemeforotherpurposes. Oneshouldnotexpectthatgeneralpurposesoftwarewilldoanythinguseful withURIsofthisschemebeyondURIcomparison. OnemisguidedmotivationforregisteringanewURIschemeistoallowasoftware agenttolaunchaparticularapplicationwhenretrievingarepresentation.Thesame thingcanbeaccomplishedatlowerexpensebydispatchinginsteadonthetypeof therepresentation,therebyallowinguseofexistingtransferprotocolsand implementations. Evenifanagentcannotprocessrepresentationdatainanunknownformat,itcanat leastretrieveit.Thedatamaycontainenoughinformationtoallowauseroruser agenttomakesomeuseofit.WhenanagentdoesnothandleanewURIscheme, itcannotretrievearepresentation. Whendesigninganewdataformat,thepreferredmechanismtopromoteits deploymentontheWebistheInternetmediatype(seeRepresentationTypesand InternetMediaTypes(3.2)).Mediatypesalsoprovideameansforbuildingnew
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informationapplications,asdescribedinfuturedirectionsfordataformats(4.6).
2.5.URIOpacity
ItistemptingtoguessthenatureofaresourcebyinspectionofaURIthatidentifies it.However,theWebisdesignedsothatagentscommunicateresourceinformation statethroughrepresentations,notidentifiers.Ingeneral,onecannotdeterminethe typeofaresourcerepresentationbyinspectingaURIforthatresource.For example,the".html"attheendof"http://example.com/page.html"providesno guaranteethatrepresentationsoftheidentifiedresourcewillbeservedwiththe Internetmediatype"text/html".Thepublisherisfreetoallocateidentifiersand definehowtheyareserved.TheHTTPprotocoldoesnotconstraintheInternet mediatypebasedonthepathcomponentoftheURItheURIownerisfreeto configuretheservertoreturnarepresentationusingPNGoranyotherdataformat. Resourcestatemayevolveovertime.RequiringaURIownertopublishanewURI foreachchangeinresourcestatewouldleadtoasignificantnumberofbroken references.Forrobustness,Webarchitecturepromotesindependencebetweenan identifierandthestateoftheidentifiedresource.
Goodpractice:URIopacity AgentsmakinguseofURIsSHOULDNOTattempttoinferpropertiesof thereferencedresource. Inpractice,asmallnumberofinferencescanbemadebecausetheyareexplicitly licensedbytherelevantspecifications.Someoftheseinferencesarediscussedin thedetailsofretrievingarepresentation(3.1.1). TheexampleURIusedinthetravelscenario ("http://weather.example.com/oaxaca")suggeststoahumanreaderthatthe identifiedresourcehassomethingtodowiththeweatherinOaxaca.Asite reportingtheweatherinOaxacacouldjustaseasilybeidentifiedbytheURI "http://vjc.example.com/315".AndtheURI"http://weather.example.com/vancouver" mightidentifytheresource"myphotoalbum." Ontheotherhand,theURI"mailto:joe@example.com"indicatesthattheURIrefers toamailbox.The"mailto"URIschemespecificationauthorizesagentstoinferthat URIsofthisformidentifyInternetmailboxes. SomeURIassignmentauthoritiesdocumentandpublishtheirURIassignment policies.FormoreinformationaboutURIopacity,seeTAGissuesmetaDataInURI 31andsiteData36.
2.6.FragmentIdentifiers
Story WhenbrowsingtheXHTMLdocumentthatNadiareceivesasa
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representationoftheresourceidentifiedby "http://weather.example.com/oaxaca",shefindsthattheURI "http://weather.example.com/oaxaca#weekend"referstothepartofthe representationthatconveysinformationabouttheweekendoutlook.This URIincludesthefragmentidentifier"weekend"(thestringafterthe"#"). ThefragmentidentifiercomponentofaURIallowsindirectidentificationofa secondaryresourcebyreferencetoaprimaryresourceandadditionalidentifying information.Thesecondaryresourcemaybesomeportionorsubsetoftheprimary resource,someviewonrepresentationsoftheprimaryresource,orsomeother resourcedefinedordescribedbythoserepresentations.Theterms"primary resource"and"secondaryresource"aredefinedinsection3.5of[URI]. Thetermsprimaryandsecondaryinthiscontextdonotlimitthenatureofthe resourcetheyarenotclasses.Inthiscontext,primaryandsecondarysimply indicatethatthereisarelationshipbetweentheresourcesforthepurposesofone URI:theURIwithafragmentidentifier.Anyresourcecanbeidentifiedasa secondaryresource.ItmightalsobeidentifiedusingaURIwithoutafragment identifier,andaresourcemaybeidentifiedasasecondaryresourceviamultiple URIs.Thepurposeofthesetermsistoenablediscussionoftherelationship betweensuchresources,nottolimitthenatureofaresource. Theinterpretationoffragmentidentifiersisdiscussedinthesectiononmediatypes andfragmentidentifiersemantics(3.2.1). SeeTAGissueabstractComponentRefs37,whichconcernstheuseoffragment identifierswithnamespacenamestoidentifyabstractcomponents.
2.7.FutureDirectionsforIdentifiers
ThereremainopenquestionsregardingidentifiersontheWeb. 2.7.1.Internationalizedidentifiers Theintegrationofinternationalizedidentifiers(i.e.,composedofcharactersbeyond thoseallowedby[URI])intotheWebarchitectureisanimportantandopenissue. SeeTAGissueIRIEverywhere27fordiscussionaboutworkgoingoninthisarea. 2.7.2.AssertionthattwoURIsidentifythesameresource EmergingSemanticWebtechnologies,includingthe"WebOntologyLanguage (OWL)"[OWL10],defineRDFpropertiessuchass a m e A s toassertthattwoURIs identifythesameresourceori n v e r s e F u n c t i o n a l P r o p e r t y toimplyit.
3.Interaction
CommunicationbetweenagentsoveranetworkaboutresourcesinvolvesURIs, messages,anddata.TheWeb'sprotocols(includingHTTP,FTP,SOAP,NNTP, andSMTP)arebasedontheexchangeofmessages.Amessagemayinclude dataaswellasmetadataaboutaresource(suchasthe"Alternates"and"Vary" HTTPheaders),themessagedata,andthemessageitself(suchasthe"Transfer encoding"HTTPheader).Amessagemayevenincludemetadataaboutthe
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messagemetadata(formessageintegritychecks,forinstance).
Story Nadiafollowsahypertextlinklabeled"satelliteimage"expectingto retrieveasatellitephotooftheOaxacaregion.Thelinktothesatellite imageisanXHTMLlinkencodedas< a

h r e f = " h t t p : / / e x a m p l e . c o m / s a t i m a g e / o a x a c a " > s a t e l l i t ei m a g e < / a > .
Nadia'sbrowseranalyzestheURIanddeterminesthatitsschemeis "http".Thebrowserconfigurationdetermineshowitlocatestheidentified information,whichmightbeviaacacheofpriorretrievalactions,by contactinganintermediary(suchasaproxyserver),orbydirectaccess totheserveridentifiedbyaportionoftheURI.Inthisexample,the browseropensanetworkconnectiontoport80ontheserverat "example.com"andsendsa"GET"messageasspecifiedbytheHTTP protocol,requestingarepresentationoftheresource. Theserversendsaresponsemessagetothebrowser,onceagain accordingtotheHTTPprotocol.Themessageconsistsofseveral headersandaJPEGimage.Thebrowserreadstheheaders,learnsfrom the"ContentType"fieldthattheInternetmediatypeoftherepresentation is"image/jpeg",readsthesequenceofoctetsthatmakeupthe representationdata,andrenderstheimage. Thissectiondescribesthearchitecturalprinciplesandconstraintsregarding interactionsbetweenagents,includingsuchtopicsasnetworkprotocolsand interactionstyles,alongwithinteractionsbetweentheWebasasystemandthe peoplethatmakeuseofit.ThefactthattheWebisahighlydistributedsystem affectsarchitecturalconstraintsandassumptionsaboutinteractions.
3.1.UsingaURItoAccessaResource
AgentsmayuseaURItoaccessthereferencedresourcethisiscalled dereferencingtheURI.Accessmaytakemanyforms,includingretrievinga representationoftheresource(forinstance,byusingHTTPGETorHEAD),adding ormodifyingarepresentationoftheresource(forinstance,byusingHTTPPOSTor PUT,whichinsomecasesmaychangetheactualstateoftheresourceifthe submittedrepresentationsareinterpretedasinstructionstothatend),anddeleting someorallrepresentationsoftheresource(forinstance,byusingHTTPDELETE, whichinsomecasesmayresultinthedeletionoftheresourceitself). TheremaybemorethanonewaytoaccessaresourceforagivenURIapplication contextdetermineswhichaccessmethodanagentuses.Forinstance,abrowser mightuseHTTPGETtoretrievearepresentationofaresource,whereasa hypertextlinkcheckermightuseHTTPHEADonthesameURIsimplytoestablish whetherarepresentationisavailable.SomeURIschemessetexpectationsabout availableaccessmethods,others(suchastheURNscheme[RFC2141])donot. Section1.2.2of[URI]discussestheseparationofidentificationandinteractionin moredetail.Formoreinformationaboutrelationshipsbetweenmultipleaccess methodsandURIaddressability,seetheTAGfinding"URIs,Addressability,and theuseofHTTPGETandPOST".
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AlthoughmanyURIschemes(2.4)arenamedafterprotocols,thisdoesnotimply thatuseofsuchaURIwillnecessarilyresultinaccesstotheresourceviathe namedprotocol.EvenwhenanagentusesaURItoretrievearepresentation,that accessmightbethroughgateways,proxies,caches,andnameresolutionservices thatareindependentoftheprotocolassociatedwiththeschemename. ManyURIschemesdefineadefaultinteractionprotocolforattemptingaccessto theidentifiedresource.Thatinteractionprotocolisoftenthebasisforallocating identifierswithinthatscheme,justas"http"URIsaredefinedintermsofTCP basedHTTPservers.However,thisdoesnotimplythatallinteractionwithsuch resourcesislimitedtothedefaultinteractionprotocol.Forexample,information retrievalsystemsoftenmakeuseofproxiestointeractwithamultitudeofURI schemes,suchasHTTPproxiesbeingusedtoaccess"ftp"and"wais"resources. Proxiescanalsotoprovideenhancedservices,suchasannotationproxiesthat combinenormalinformationretrievalwithadditionalmetadataretrievaltoprovidea seamless,multidimensionalviewofresourcesusingthesameprotocolsanduser agentsasthenonannotatedWeb.Likewise,futureprotocolsmaybedefinedthat encompassourcurrentsystems,usingentirelydifferentinteractionmechanisms, withoutchangingtheexistingidentifierschemes.Seealso,principleoforthogonal specifications(5.1). 3.1.1.Detailsofretrievingarepresentation DereferencingaURIgenerallyinvolvesasuccessionofstepsasdescribedin multiplespecificationsandimplementedbytheagent.Thefollowingexample illustratestheseriesofspecificationsthatgovernstheprocesswhenauseragentis instructedtofollowahypertextlink(4.4)thatispartofanSVGdocument.Inthis example,theURIis"http://weather.example.com/oaxaca"andtheapplication contextcallsfortheuseragenttoretrieveandrenderarepresentationofthe identifiedresource. 1. SincetheURIispartofahypertextlinkinanSVGdocument,thefirstrelevant specificationistheSVG1.1Recommendation[SVG11].Section17.1ofthis specificationimportsthelinksemanticsdefinedinXLink1.0[XLink10]:"The remoteresource(thedestinationforthelink)isdefinedbyaURIspecifiedby theXLinkh r e f attributeonthe'a 'element."TheSVGspecificationgoesonto statethatinterpretationofana elementinvolvesretrievingarepresentationof aresource,identifiedbytheh r e f attributeintheXLinknamespace:"By activatingtheselinks(byclickingwiththemouse,throughkeyboardinput, voicecommands,etc.),usersmayvisittheseresources." 2. TheXLink1.0[XLink10]specification,whichdefinestheh r e f attributein section5.4,statesthat"ThevalueofthehrefattributemustbeaURI referenceasdefinedin[IETFRFC2396],ormustresultinaURIreference aftertheescapingproceduredescribedbelowisapplied." 3. TheURIspecification[URI]statesthat"EachURIbeginswithascheme namethatreferstoaspecificationforassigningidentifierswithinthat scheme."TheURIschemenameinthisexampleis"http". 4. [IANASchemes]statesthatthe"http"schemeisdefinedbytheHTTP/1.1 specification(RFC2616[RFC2616],section3.2.2). 5. InthisSVGcontext,theagentconstructsanHTTPGETrequest(persection 9.3of[RFC2616])toretrievetherepresentation. 6. Section6of[RFC2616]defineshowtheserverconstructsacorresponding responsemessage,includingthe'ContentType'field. 7. Section1.4of[RFC2616]states"HTTPcommunicationusuallytakesplace
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overTCP/IPconnections."Thisexampleaddressesneitherthatstepinthe processnorotherstepssuchasDomainNameSystem(DNS)resolution. 8. Theagentinterpretsthereturnedrepresentationaccordingtothedataformat specificationthatcorrespondstotherepresentation'sInternetMediaType (3.2)(thevalueoftheHTTP'ContentType')intherelevantIANAregistry [MEDIATYPEREG]. Preciselywhichrepresentation(s)areretrieveddependsonanumberoffactors, including: 1. WhethertheURIownermakesavailableanyrepresentationsatall 2. Whethertheagentmakingtherequesthasaccessprivilegesforthose representations(seethesectiononlinkingandaccesscontrol(3.5.2)) 3. IftheURIownerhasprovidedmorethanonerepresentation(indifferent formatssuchasHTML,PNG,orRDFindifferentlanguagessuchasEnglish andSpanishortransformeddynamicallyaccordingtothehardwareor softwarecapabilitiesoftherecipient),theresultingrepresentationmay dependonnegotiationbetweentheuseragentandserver. 4. Thetimeoftherequesttheworldchangesovertime,sorepresentationsof resourcesarealsolikelytochangeovertime. Assumingthatarepresentationhasbeensuccessfullyretrieved,theexpressive poweroftherepresentation'sformatwillaffecthowpreciselytherepresentation providercommunicatesresourcestate.Iftherepresentationcommunicatesthe stateoftheresourceinaccurately,thisinaccuracyorambiguitymayleadto confusionamongusersaboutwhattheresourceis.Ifdifferentusersreachdifferent conclusionsaboutwhattheresourceis,theymayinterpretthisasaURIcollision (2.2.1).Somecommunities,suchastheonesdevelopingtheSemanticWeb,seek toprovideaframeworkforaccuratelycommunicatingthesemanticsofaresourcein amachinereadableway.Machinereadablesemanticsmayalleviatesomeofthe ambiguityassociatedwithnaturallanguagedescriptionsofresources.
3.2.RepresentationTypesandInternetMediaTypes
Arepresentationisdatathatencodesinformationaboutresourcestate. Representationsdonotnecessarilydescribetheresource,orportrayalikenessof theresource,orrepresenttheresourceinothersensesoftheword"represent". Representationsofaresourcemaybesentorreceivedusinginteractionprotocols. Theseprotocolsinturndeterminetheforminwhichrepresentationsareconveyed ontheWeb.HTTP,forexample,providesfortransmissionofrepresentationsas octetstreamstypedusingInternetmediatypes[RFC2046]. JustasitisimportanttoreuseexistingURIschemeswheneverpossible,thereare significantbenefitstousingmediatypedoctetstreamsforrepresentationsevenin theunusualcasewhereanewURIschemeandassociatedprotocolistobe defined.Forexample,iftheOaxacaweatherwereconveyedtoNadia'sbrowser usingaprotocolotherthanHTTP,thensoftwaretorenderformatssuchas text/xhmtl+xmlandimage/pngwouldstillbeusableifthenewprotocolsupported transmissionofthosetypes.Thisisanexampleoftheprincipleoforthogonal specifications(5.1).
Goodpractice:Reuserepresentationformats
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NewprotocolscreatedfortheWebSHOULDtransmitrepresentationsas octetstreamstypedbyInternetmediatypes. TheInternetmediatypemechanismdoeshavesomelimitations.Forinstance, mediatypestringsdonotsupportversioning(4.2.1)orotherparameters.SeeTAG issuesuriMediaType9andmediaTypeManagement45whichconcernaspectsof themediatypemechanism. 3.2.1.Representationtypesandfragmentidentifiersemantics TheInternetMediaTypedefinesthesyntaxandsemanticsofthefragmentidentifier (introducedinFragmentIdentifiers(2.6)),ifany,thatmaybeusedinconjunction witharepresentation.
Story InoneofhisXHTMLpages,Dirkcreatesahypertextlinktoanimage thatNadiahaspublishedontheWeb.Hecreatesahypertextlinkwith< a h r e f = " h t t p : / / w w w . e x a m p l e . c o m / i m a g e s / n a d i a # h a t " > N a d i a ' sh a t < / a > . EmmaviewsDirk'sXHTMLpageinherWebbrowserandfollowsthe link.TheHTMLimplementationinherbrowserremovesthefragment fromtheURIandrequeststheimage "http://www.example.com/images/nadia".NadiaservesanSVG representationoftheimage(withInternetmediatype"image/svg+xml"). Emma'sWebbrowserstartsupanSVGimplementationtoviewthe image.ItpassesittheoriginalURIincludingthefragment, "http://www.example.com/images/nadia#hat"tothisimplementation, causingaviewofthehattobedisplayedratherthanthecomplete image. NotethattheHTMLimplementationinEmma'sbrowserdidnotneedtounderstand thesyntaxorsemanticsoftheSVGfragment(nordoestheSVGimplementation havetounderstandHTML,WebCGM,RDF...fragmentsyntaxorsemanticsit merelyhadtorecognizethe#delimiterfromtheURIsyntax[URI]andremovethe fragmentwhenaccessingtheresource).Thisorthogonality(5.1)isanimportant featureofWebarchitectureitiswhatenabledEmma'sbrowsertoprovideauseful servicewithoutrequiringanupgrade. Thesemanticsofafragmentidentifieraredefinedbythesetofrepresentationsthat mightresultfromaretrievalactionontheprimaryresource.Thefragment'sformat andresolutionarethereforedependentonthetypeofapotentiallyretrieved representation,eventhoughsucharetrievalisonlyperformediftheURIis dereferenced.Ifnosuchrepresentationexists,thenthesemanticsofthefragment areconsideredunknownand,effectively,unconstrained.Fragmentidentifier semanticsareorthogonaltoURIschemesandthuscannotberedefinedbyURI schemespecifications. Interpretationofthefragmentidentifierisperformedsolelybytheagentthat dereferencesaURIthefragmentidentifierisnotpassedtoothersystemsduring theprocessofretrieval.ThismeansthatsomeintermediariesinWebarchitecture
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(suchasproxies)havenointeractionwithfragmentidentifiersandthatredirection (inHTTP[RFC2616],forexample)doesnotaccountforfragments. 3.2.2.Fragmentidentifiersandcontentnegotiation Contentnegotiationreferstothepracticeofmakingavailablemultiple representationsviathesameURI.Negotiationbetweentherequestingagentand theserverdetermineswhichrepresentationisserved(usuallywiththegoalof servingthe"best"representationareceivingagentcanprocess).HTTPisan exampleofaprotocolthatenablesrepresentationproviderstousecontent negotiation. Individualdataformatsmaydefinetheirownrulesforuseofthefragmentidentifier syntaxforspecifyingdifferenttypesofsubsets,views,orexternalreferencesthat areidentifiableassecondaryresourcesbythatmediatype.Therefore, representationprovidersmustmanagecontentnegotiationcarefullywhenused withaURIthatcontainsafragmentidentifier.Consideranexamplewherethe owneroftheURI"http://weather.example.com/oaxaca/map#zicatela"usescontent negotiationtoservetworepresentationsoftheidentifiedresource.Threesituations canarise: 1. Theinterpretationof"zicatela"isdefinedconsistentlybybothdataformat specifications.Therepresentationproviderdecideswhendefinitionsof fragmentidentifiersemanticsarearesufficientlyconsistent. 2. Theinterpretationof"zicatela"isdefinedinconsistentlybythedataformat specifications. 3. Theinterpretationof"zicatela"isdefinedinonedataformatspecificationbut nottheother. Thefirstsituationconsistentsemanticsposesnoproblem. Thesecondcaseisaservermanagementerror:representationprovidersmustnot usecontentnegotiationtoserverepresentationformatsthathaveinconsistent fragmentidentifiersemantics.ThissituationalsoleadstoURIcollision(2.2.1). Thethirdcaseisnotaservermanagementerror.ItisameansbywhichtheWeb cangrow.BecausetheWebisadistributedsysteminwhichformatsandagents aredeployedinanonuniformmanner,Webarchitecturedoesnotconstrain authorstoonlyuse"lowestcommondenominator"formats.Contentauthorsmay takeadvantageofnewdataformatswhilestillensuringreasonablebackward compatibilityforagentsthatdonotyetimplementthem. Incasethree,behaviorbythereceivingagentshouldvarydependingonwhether thenegotiatedformatdefinesfragmentidentifiersemantics.Whenareceiveddata formatdoesnotdefinefragmentidentifiersemantics,theagentshouldnotperform silenterrorrecoveryunlesstheuserhasgivenconsentsee[CUAP]foradditional suggestedagentbehaviorinthiscase. SeerelatedTAGissueRDFinXHTML35.
3.3.InconsistenciesbetweenRepresentationDataandMetadata
Successfulcommunicationbetweentwopartiesdependsonareasonablyshared understandingofthesemanticsofexchangedmessages,bothdataandmetadata.
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Attimes,theremaybeinconsistenciesbetweenamessagesender'sdataand metadata.Examples,observedinpractice,ofinconsistenciesbetween representationdataandmetadatainclude: Theactualcharacterencodingofarepresentation(e.g.,"iso88591", specifiedbythee n c o d i n g attributeinanXMLdeclaration)isinconsistentwith thecharsetparameterintherepresentationmetadata(e.g.,"utf8",specified bythe'ContentType'fieldinanHTTPheader). Thenamespace(4.5.3)oftherootelementofXMLrepresentationdata(e.g., asspecifiedbythe"xmlns"attribute)isinconsistentwiththevalueofthe 'ContentType'fieldinanHTTPheader. Ontheotherhand,thereisnoinconsistencyinservingHTMLcontentwiththe mediatype"text/plain",forexample,asthiscombinationislicensedby specifications. Receivingagentsshoulddetectprotocolinconsistenciesandperformpropererror recovery.
Constraint:Datametadatainconsistency AgentsMUSTNOTignoremessagemetadatawithouttheconsentofthe user. Thus,forexample,ifthepartiesresponsiblefor"weather.example.com"mistakenly labelthesatellitephotoofOaxacaas"image/gif"insteadof"image/jpeg",andif Nadia'sbrowserdetectsaproblem,Nadia'sbrowsermustnotignoretheproblem (e.g.,bysimplyrenderingtheJPEGimage)withoutNadia'sconsent.Nadia's browsercannotifyNadiaoftheproblemornotifyNadiaandtakecorrectiveaction. Furthermore,representationproviderscanhelpreducetheriskofinconsistencies throughcarefulassignmentofrepresentationmetadata(especiallythatwhich appliesacrossrepresentations).ThesectiononmediatypesforXML(4.5.7) presentsanexampleofreducingtheriskoferrorbyprovidingnometadataabout characterencodingwhenservingXML. Theaccuracyofmetadatareliesontheserveradministrators,theauthorsof representations,andthesoftwarethattheyuse.Practically,thecapabilitiesofthe toolsandthesocialrelationshipsmaybethelimitingfactors. Theaccuracyoftheseandothermetadatafieldsisjustasimportantfordynamic Webresources,wherealittlebitofthoughtandprogrammingcanoftenensure correctmetadataforahugenumberofresources. Oftenthereisaseparationofcontrolbetweentheuserswhocreaterepresentations ofresourcesandtheservermanagerswhomaintaintheWebsitesoftware.Given thatitisgenerallytheWebsitesoftwarethatprovidesthemetadataassociatedwith aresource,itfollowsthatcoordinationbetweentheservermanagersandcontent creatorsisrequired.
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Goodpractice:Metadataassociation ServermanagersSHOULDallowrepresentationcreatorstocontrolthe metadataassociatedwiththeirrepresentations. Inparticular,contentcreatorsneedtobeabletocontrolthecontenttype(for extensibility)andthecharacterencoding(forproperinternationalization). TheTAGfinding"AuthoritativeMetadata"discussesinmoredetailhowtohandle data/metadatainconsistencyandhowserverconfigurationcanbeusedtoavoidit.
3.4.SafeInteractions
Nadia'sretrievalofweatherinformation(anexampleofareadonlyqueryor lookup)qualifiesasa"safe"interactionasafeinteractionisonewheretheagent doesnotincuranyobligationbeyondtheinteraction.Anagentmayincuran obligationthroughothermeans(suchasbysigningacontract).Ifanagentdoesnot haveanobligationbeforeasafeinteraction,itdoesnothavethatobligation afterwards. OtherWebinteractionsresembleordersmorethanqueries.Theseunsafe interactionsmaycauseachangetothestateofaresourceandtheusermaybe heldresponsiblefortheconsequencesoftheseinteractions.Unsafeinteractions includesubscribingtoanewsletter,postingtoalist,ormodifyingadatabase.Note: Inthiscontext,theword"unsafe"doesnotnecessarilymean"dangerous"theterm "safe"isusedinsection9.1.1of[RFC2616]and"unsafe"isthenaturalopposite.
Story NadiadecidestobookavacationtoOaxacaat"booking.example.com." Sheentersdataintoaseriesofonlineformsandisultimatelyaskedfor creditcardinformationtopurchasetheairlinetickets.Sheprovidesthis informationinanotherform.Whenshepressesthe"Purchase"button, herbrowseropensanothernetworkconnectiontotheserverat "booking.example.com"andsendsamessagecomposedofformdata usingthePOSTmethod.ThisisanunsafeinteractionNadiawishesto changethestateofthesystembyexchangingmoneyforairlinetickets. TheserverreadsthePOSTrequest,andafterperformingthebooking transactionreturnsamessagetoNadia'sbrowserthatcontainsa representationoftheresultsofNadia'srequest.Therepresentationdata isinXHTMLsothatitcanbesavedorprintedoutforNadia'srecords. NotethatneitherthedatatransmittedwiththePOSTnorthedata receivedintheresponsenecessarilycorrespondtoanyresource identifiedbyaURI. Safeinteractionsareimportantbecausetheseareinteractionswhereuserscan browsewithconfidenceandwhereagents(includingsearchenginesandbrowsers
thatprecachedatafortheuser)canfollowhypertextlinkssafely.Users(oragents
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thatprecachedatafortheuser)canfollowhypertextlinkssafely.Users(oragents actingontheirbehalf)donotcommitthemselvestoanythingbyqueryinga resourceorfollowingahypertextlink.
Principle:Saferetrieval Agentsdonotincurobligationsbyretrievingarepresentation. Forinstance,itisincorrecttopublishaURIthat,whenfollowedaspartofa hypertextlink,subscribesausertoamailinglist.Rememberthatsearchengines mayfollowsuchhypertextlinks. ThefactthatHTTPGET,theaccessmethodmostoftenusedwhenfollowinga hypertextlink,issafedoesnotimplythatallsafeinteractionsmustbedonethrough HTTPGET.Attimes,theremaybegoodreasons(suchasconfidentiality requirementsorpracticallimitsonURIlength)toconductanotherwisesafe operationusingamechanismgenerallyreservedforunsafeoperations(e.g.,HTTP POST). FormoreinformationaboutsafeandunsafeoperationsusingHTTPGETand POST,andhandlingsecurityconcernsaroundtheuseofHTTPGET,seetheTAG finding"URIs,Addressability,andtheuseofHTTPGETandPOST". 3.4.1.Unsafeinteractionsandaccountability
Story Nadiapaysforherairlineticketsonline(throughaPOSTinteractionas describedabove).ShereceivesaWebpagewithconfirmation informationandwishestobookmarkitsothatshecanrefertoitwhen shecalculatesherexpenses.AlthoughNadiacanprintouttheresults,or savethemtoafile,shewouldalsoliketobookmarkthem. Transactionrequestsandresultsarevaluableresources,andlikeallvaluable resources,itisusefultobeabletorefertothemwithapersistentURI(3.5.1). However,inpractice,Nadiacannotbookmarkhercommitmenttopay(expressed viathePOSTrequest)ortheairlinecompany'sacknowledgmentandcommitment toprovideherwithaflight(expressedviatheresponsetothePOST). TherearewaystoprovidepersistentURIsfortransactionrequestsandtheirresults. Fortransactionrequests,useragentscanprovideaninterfaceformanaging transactionswheretheuseragenthasincurredanobligationonbehalfoftheuser. Fortransactionresults,HTTPallowsrepresentationproviderstoassociateaURI withtheresultsofanHTTPPOSTrequestusingthe"ContentLocation"header (describedinsection14.14of[RFC2616]).
3.5.RepresentationManagement
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Story SinceNadiafindstheOaxacaweathersiteuseful,sheemailsareview toherfriendDirkrecommendingthathecheckout 'http://weather.example.com/oaxaca'.Dirkclicksontheresulting hypertextlinkintheemailhereceivesandisfrustratedbya404(not found).Dirktriesagainthenextdayandreceivesarepresentationwith "news"thatistwoweeksold.Hetriesonemoretimethenextdayonlyto receivearepresentationthatclaimsthattheweatherinOaxacaissunny, eventhoughhisfriendsinOaxacatellhimbyphonethatinfactitis raining.DirkandNadiaconcludethattheURIownersareunreliableor unpredictable.AlthoughtheURIownerhaschosentheWebasa communicationmedium,theownerhaslosttwocustomersdueto ineffectiverepresentationmanagement. AURIownermaysupplyzeroormoreauthoritativerepresentationsoftheresource identifiedbythatURI.Thereisabenefittothecommunityinproviding representations.
Goodpractice:Availablerepresentation AURIownerSHOULDproviderepresentationsoftheresourceit identifies Forexample,ownersofXMLnamespaceURIsshouldusethemtoidentifya namespacedocument(4.5.4). Justbecauserepresentationsareavailabledoesnotmeanthatitisalways desirabletoretrievethem.Infact,insomecasestheoppositeistrue.
Principle:Referencedoesnotimplydereference AnapplicationdeveloperorspecificationauthorSHOULDNOTrequire networkedretrievalofrepresentationseachtimetheyarereferenced. DereferencingaURIhasa(potentiallysignificant)costincomputingand bandwidthresources,mayhavesecurityimplications,andmayimposesignificant latencyonthedereferencingapplication.DereferencingURIsshouldbeavoided exceptwhennecessary. Thefollowingsectionsdiscusssomeaspectsofrepresentationmanagement, includingpromotingURIpersistence(3.5.1),managingaccesstoresources (3.5.2),andsupportingnavigation(3.5.3). 3.5.1.URIpersistence
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Asisthecasewithmanyhumaninteractions,confidenceininteractionsviathe Webdependsonstabilityandpredictability.Foraninformationresource, persistencedependsontheconsistencyofrepresentations.Therepresentation providerdecideswhenrepresentationsaresufficientlyconsistent(althoughthat determinationgenerallytakesuserexpectationsintoaccount). Althoughpersistenceinthiscaseisobservableasaresultofrepresentation retrieval,thetermURIpersistenceisusedtodescribethedesirablepropertythat, onceassociatedwitharesource,aURIshouldcontinueindefinitelytorefertothat resource.
Goodpractice:Consistentrepresentation AURIownerSHOULDproviderepresentationsoftheidentifiedresource consistentlyandpredictably. URIpersistenceisamatterofpolicyandcommitmentonthepartoftheURIowner. ThechoiceofaparticularURIschemeprovidesnoguaranteethatthoseURIswill bepersistentorthattheywillnotbepersistent. HTTP[RFC2616]hasbeendesignedtohelpmanageURIpersistence.For example,HTTPredirection(usingthe3xxresponsecodes)permitsserverstotell anagentthatfurtheractionneedstobetakenbytheagentinordertofulfillthe request(forexample,anewURIisassociatedwiththeresource). Inaddition,contentnegotiationalsopromotesconsistency,asasitemanagerisnot requiredtodefinenewURIswhenaddingsupportforanewformatspecification. Protocolsthatdonotsupportcontentnegotiation(suchasFTP)requireanew identifierwhenanewdataformatisintroduced.Improperuseofcontentnegotiation canleadtoinconsistentrepresentations. FormorediscussionaboutURIpersistence,see[Cool]. 3.5.2.Linkingandaccesscontrol Itisreasonabletolimitaccesstoaresource(forcommercialorsecurityreasons,for example),butmerelyidentifyingtheresourceislikereferringtoabookbytitle.In exceptionalcircumstances,peoplemayhaveagreedtokeeptitlesorURIs confidential(forexample,abookauthorandapublishermayagreetokeeptheURI ofpagecontainingadditionalmaterialsecretuntilafterthebookispublished), otherwisetheyarefreetoexchangethem. Asananalogy:Theownersofabuildingmighthaveapolicythatthepublicmay onlyenterthebuildingviathemainfrontdoor,andonlyduringbusinesshours. Peoplewhoworkinthebuildingandwhomakedeliveriestoitmightuseother doorsasappropriate.Suchapolicywouldbeenforcedbyacombinationofsecurity personnelandmechanicaldevicessuchaslocksandpasscards.Onewouldnot enforcethispolicybyhidingsomeofthebuildingentrances,norbyrequesting legislationrequiringtheuseofthefrontdoorandforbiddinganyonetorevealthe factthatthereareotherdoorstothebuilding.
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Story NadiasendstoDirktheURIofthecurrentarticlesheisreading.Withhis browser,Dirkfollowsthehypertextlinkandisaskedtoenterhis subscriberusernameandpassword.SinceDirkisalsoasubscriberto servicesprovidedby"weather.example.com,"hecanaccessthesame informationasNadia.Thus,theauthorityfor"weather.example.com"can limitaccesstoauthorizedpartiesandstillprovidethebenefitsofURIs. TheWebprovidesseveralmechanismstocontrolaccesstoresourcesthese mechanismsdonotrelyonhidingorsuppressingURIsforthoseresources.For moreinformation,seetheTAGfinding"'DeepLinking'intheWorldWideWeb". 3.5.3.SupportingNavigation ItisastrengthofWebArchitecturethatlinkscanbemadeandsharedauserwho hasfoundaninterestingpartoftheWebcansharethisexperiencejustby republishingaURI.
Story NadiaandDirkwanttovisittheMuseumofWeatherForecastingin Oaxaca.Nadiagoesto"http://maps.example.com",locatesthemuseum, andmailstheURI"http://maps.example.com/oaxaca? lat=17.065lon=96.716scale=6"toDirk.Dirkgoesto "http://mymaps.example.com",locatesthemuseum,andmailstheURI "http://mymaps.example.com/geo?sessionID=765345userID=Dirk"to Nadia.DirkreadsNadia'semailandisabletofollowthelinktothemap. NadiareadsDirk'semail,followsthelink,andreceivesanerror message'Nosuchsession/user'.Nadiahastostartagainfrom "http://mymaps.example.com"andfindthemuseumlocationoncemore. Forresourcesthataregeneratedondemand,machinegenerationofURIsis common.Forresourcesthatmightusefullybebookmarkedforlaterperusal,or sharedwithothers,servermanagersshouldavoidneedlesslyrestrictingthe reusabilityofsuchURIs.Iftheintentionistorestrictinformationtoaparticularuser, asmightbethecaseinahomebankingapplicationforexample,designersshould useappropriateaccesscontrol(3.5.2)mechanisms. InteractionsconductedwithHTTPPOST(whereHTTPGETcouldhavebeen used)alsolimitnavigationpossibilities.Theusercannotcreateabookmarkor sharetheURIbecauseHTTPPOSTtransactionsdonottypicallyresultina differentURIastheuserinteractswiththesite.
3.6.FutureDirectionsforInteraction
ThereremainopenquestionsregardingWebinteractions.TheTAGexpectsfuture versionsofthisdocumenttoaddressinmoredetailtherelationshipbetweenthe architecturedescribedherein,WebServices,peertopeersystems,instant
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messagingsystems(suchas[RFC3920]),streamingaudio(suchasRTSP [RFC2326]),andvoiceoverIP(suchasSIP[RFC3261]).
4.DataFormats
Adataformatspecification(forexample,forXHTML,RDF/XML,SMIL,XLink,CSS, andPNG)embodiesanagreementonthecorrectinterpretationofrepresentation data.ThefirstdataformatusedontheWebwasHTML.Sincethen,dataformats havegrowninnumber.Webarchitecturedoesnotconstrainwhichdataformats contentproviderscanuse.Thisflexibilityisimportantbecausethereisconstant evolutioninapplications,resultinginnewdataformatsandrefinementsofexisting formats.AlthoughWebarchitectureallowsforthedeploymentofnewdataformats, thecreationanddeploymentofnewformats(andagentsabletohandlethem)is expensive.Thus,beforeinventinganewdataformat(or"meta"formatsuchas XML),designersshouldcarefullyconsiderreusingonethatisalreadyavailable. Foradataformattobeusefullyinteroperablebetweentwoparties,thepartiesmust agree(toareasonableextent)aboutitssyntaxandsemantics.Shared understandingofadataformatpromotesinteroperabilitybutdoesnotimply constraintsonusageforinstance,asenderofdatacannotcountonbeingableto constrainthebehaviorofadatareceiver. Belowwedescribesomecharacteristicsofadataformatthatfacilitateintegration intoWebarchitecture.Thisdocumentdoesnotaddressgenerallybeneficial characteristicsofaspecificationsuchasreadability,simplicity,attentionto programmergoals,attentiontouserneeds,accessibility,norinternationalization. Thesectiononarchitecturalspecifications(7.1)includesreferencestoadditional formatspecificationguidelines.
4.1.BinaryandTextualDataFormats
Binarydataformatsarethoseinwhichportionsofthedataareencodedfordirect usebycomputerprocessors,forexample32bitlittleendiantwo'scomplementand 64bitIEEEdoubleprecisionfloatingpoint.Theportionsofdatasorepresented includenumericvalues,pointers,andcompresseddataofallsorts. Atextualdataformatisoneinwhichthedataisspecifiedinadefinedencodingas asequenceofcharacters.HTML,Internetemail,andallXMLbasedformats(4.5) aretextual.Increasingly,internationalizedtextualdataformatsrefertotheUnicode repertoire[UNICODE]forcharacterdefinitions. Ifadataformatistextual,asdefinedinthissection,thatdoesnotimplythatit shouldbeservedwithamediatypebeginningwith"text/".AlthoughXMLbased formatsaretextual,manyXMLbasedformatsdonotconsistprimarilyofphrasesin naturallanguage.SeethesectiononmediatypesforXML(4.5.7)forissuesthat arisewhen"text/"isusedinconjunctionwithanXMLbasedformat. Inprinciple,alldatacanberepresentedusingtextualformats.Inpractice,some typesofcontent(e.g.,audioandvideo)aregenerallyrepresentedusingbinary formats. Thetradeoffsbetweenbinaryandtextualdataformatsarecomplexand applicationdependent.Binaryformatscanbesubstantiallymorecompact, particularlyforcomplexpointerrichdatastructures.Also,theycanbeconsumed
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morerapidlybyagentsinthosecaseswheretheycanbeloadedintomemoryand usedwithlittleornoconversion.Note,however,thatsuchcasesarerelatively uncommonassuchdirectusemayopenthedoortosecurityissuesthatcanonly practicallybeaddressedbyexaminingeveryaspectofthedatastructureindetail. Textualformatsareusuallymoreportableandinteroperable.Textualformatsalso havetheconsiderableadvantagethattheycanbedirectlyreadbyhumanbeings (andunderstood,givensufficientdocumentation).Thiscansimplifythetasksof creatingandmaintainingsoftware,andallowthedirectinterventionofhumansin theprocessingchainwithoutrecoursetotoolsmorecomplexthantheubiquitous texteditor.Finally,itsimplifiesthenecessaryhumantaskoflearningaboutnew dataformatsthisiscalledthe"viewsource"effect. Itisimportanttoemphasizethatintuitionastosuchmattersasdatasizeand processingspeedisnotareliableguideindataformatdesignquantitativestudies areessentialtoacorrectunderstandingofthetradeoffs.Therefore,designersofa dataformatspecificationshouldmakeaconsideredchoicebetweenbinaryand textualformatdesign. SeeTAGissuebinaryXML30.
4.2.VersioningandExtensibility
Inaperfectworld,languagedesignerswouldinventlanguagesthatperfectlymet therequirementspresentedtothem,therequirementswouldbeaperfectmodelof theworld,theywouldneverchangeovertime,andallimplementationswouldbe perfectlyinteroperablebecausethespecificationswouldhavenovariability. Intherealworld,languagedesignersimperfectlyaddresstherequirementsasthey interpretthem,therequirementsinaccuratelymodeltheworld,conflicting requirementsarepresented,andtheychangeovertime.Asaresult,designers negotiatewithusers,makecompromises,andoftenintroduceextensibility mechanismssothatitispossibletoworkaroundproblemsintheshortterm.Inthe longterm,theyproducemultipleversionsoftheirlanguages,astheproblem,and theirunderstandingofit,evolve.Theresultingvariabilityinspecifications, languages,andimplementationsintroducesinteroperabilitycosts. Extensibilityandversioningarestrategiestohelpmanagethenaturalevolutionof informationontheWebandtechnologiesusedtorepresentthatinformation.For moreinformationabouthowthesestrategiesintroducevariabilityandhowthat variabilityimpactsinteroperability,seeVariabilityinSpecifications. SeeTAGissueXMLVersioning41,whichconcernsgoodpracticesfordesigning extensibleXMLlanguagesandforhandlingversioning.Seealso"Web Architecture:ExtensibleLanguages"[EXTLANG]. 4.2.1.Versioning Thereistypicallya(long)transitionperiodduringwhichmultipleversionsofa format,protocol,oragentaresimultaneouslyinuse.
Goodpractice:Versioninformation
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AdataformatspecificationSHOULDprovideforversioninformation. 4.2.2.VersioningandXMLnamespacepolicy
Story NadiaandDirkaredesigninganXMLdataformattoencodedataabout thefilmindustry.TheyprovideforextensibilitybyusingXML namespacesandcreatingaschemathatallowstheinclusion,incertain places,ofelementsfromanynamespace.Whentheyrevisetheirformat, Nadiaproposesanewoptionall a n g attributeonthef i l m element.Dirk feelsthatsuchachangerequiresthemtoassignanewnamespace name,whichmightrequirechangestodeployedsoftware.Nadia explainstoDirkthattheirchoiceofextensibilitystrategyinconjunction withtheirnamespacepolicyallowscertainchangesthatdonotaffect conformanceofexistingcontentandsoftware,andthusnochangetothe namespaceidentifierisrequired.Theychosethispolicytohelpthem meettheirgoalsofreducingthecostofchange. DirkandNadiahavechosenaparticularnamespacechangepolicythatallows themtoavoidchangingthenamespacenamewhenevertheymakechangesthat donotaffectconformanceofdeployedcontentandsoftware.Theymighthave chosenadifferentpolicy,forexamplethatanynewelementorattributehasto belongtoanamespaceotherthantheoriginalone.Whateverthechosenpolicy,it shouldsetclearexpectationsforusersoftheformat. Ingeneral,changingthenamespacenameofanelementcompletelychangesthe elementname.If"a"and"b"areboundtotwodifferentURIs,a : e l e m e n t and b : e l e m e n t areasdistinctasa : e i e i o anda : x y z z y .Practicallyspeaking,thismeans thatdeployedapplicationswillhavetobeupgradedinordertorecognizethenew languagethecostofthisupgrademaybeveryhigh. Itfollowsthattherearesignificanttradeoffstobeconsideredwhendecidingona namespacechangepolicy.Ifavocabularyhasnoextensibilitypoints(thatis,ifit doesnotallowelementsorattributesfromforeignnamespacesorhavea mechanismfordealingwithunrecognizednamesfromthesamenamespace),it maybeabsolutelynecessarytochangethenamespacename.Languagesthat allowsomeformofextensibilitywithoutrequiringachangetothenamespacename aremorelikelytoevolvegracefully.
Goodpractice:Namespacepolicy AnXMLformatspecificationSHOULDincludeinformationaboutchange policiesforXMLnamespaces. Asanexampleofachangepolicydesignedtoreflectthevariablestabilityofa namespace,considertheW3CnamespacepolicyfordocumentsontheW3C

Recommendationtrack.ThepolicysetsexpectationsthattheWorkingGroup
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Recommendationtrack.ThepolicysetsexpectationsthattheWorkingGroup responsibleforthenamespacemaymodifyitinanywayuntilacertainpointinthe process("CandidateRecommendation")atwhichpointW3Cconstrainsthesetof possiblechangestothenamespaceinordertopromotestableimplementations. NotethatsincenamespacenamesareURIs,theownerofanamespaceURIhas theauthoritytodecidethenamespacechangepolicy. 4.2.3.Extensibility Requirementschangeovertime.Successfultechnologiesareadoptedand adaptedbynewusers.Designerscanfacilitatethetransitionprocessbymaking carefulchoicesaboutextensibilityduringthedesignofalanguageorprotocol specification. Inmakingthesechoices,thedesignersmustweighthetradeoffsbetween extensibility,simplicity,andvariability.Alanguagewithoutextensibility mechanismsmaybesimplerandlessvariable,improvinginitialinteroperability. However,it'slikelythatchangestothatlanguagewillbemoredifficult,possibly morecomplexandmorevariable,thaniftheinitialdesignhadprovidedsuch mechanisms.Thismaydecreaseinteroperabilityoverthelongterm.
Goodpractice:Extensibilitymechanisms AspecificationSHOULDprovidemechanismsthatallowanypartyto createextensions. Extensibilityintroducesvariabilitywhichhasanimpactoninteroperability. However,languagesthathavenoextensibilitymechanismsmaybeextendedinad hocwaysthatimpactinteroperabilityaswell.Onekeycriterionofthemechanisms providedbylanguagedesignersisthattheyallowtheextendedlanguagesto remaininconformancewiththeoriginalspecification,increasingthelikelihoodof interoperability.
Goodpractice:Extensibilityconformance ExtensibilityMUSTNOTinterferewithconformancetotheoriginal specification. Applicationneedsdeterminethemostappropriateextensionstrategyfora specification.Forexample,applicationsdesignedtooperateinclosed environmentsmayallowspecificationdesignerstodefineaversioningstrategythat wouldbeimpracticalatthescaleoftheWeb.
Goodpractice:Unknownextensions
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AspecificationSHOULDspecifyagentbehaviorinthefaceof unrecognizedextensions. Twostrategieshaveemergedasbeingparticularlyuseful: 1. "Mustignore":Theagentignoresanycontentitdoesnotrecognize. 2. "Mustunderstand":Theagenttreatsunrecognizedmarkupasanerror condition. Apowerfuldesignapproachisforthelanguagetoalloweitherformofextension, buttodistinguishexplicitlybetweentheminthesyntax. Additionalstrategiesincludepromptingtheuserformoreinputandautomatically retrievingdatafromavailablehypertextlinks.Morecomplexstrategiesarealso possible,includingmixingstrategies.Forinstance,alanguagecaninclude mechanismsforoverridingstandardbehavior.Thus,adataformatcanspecify "mustignore"semanticsbutalsoallowforextensionsthatoverridethatsemantics inlightofapplicationneeds(forinstance,with"mustunderstand"semanticsfora particularextension). Extensibilityisnotfree.Providinghooksforextensibilityisoneofmany requirementstobefactoredintothecostsoflanguagedesign.Experiencesuggests thatthelongtermbenefitsofawelldesignedextensibilitymechanismgenerally outweighthecosts. SeeD.3ExtensibilityandExtensionsin[QA]. 4.2.4.Compositionofdataformats Manymoderndataformatincludemechanismsforcomposition.Forexample: Itispossibletoembedtextcommentsinsomeimageformats,suchas JPEG/JFIF.Althoughthesecommentsareembeddedinthecontainingdata, theyarenotintendedtoaffectthedisplayoftheimage. TherearecontainerformatssuchasSOAPwhichfullyexpectcontentfrom multiplenamespacesbutwhichprovideanoverallsemanticrelationshipof messageenvelopeandpayload. ThesemanticsofcombiningRDFdocumentscontainingmultiple vocabulariesarewelldefined. Inprinciple,theserelationshipscanbemixedandnestedarbitrarily.ASOAP message,forexample,cancontainanSVGimagethatcontainsanRDFcomment whichreferstoavocabularyoftermsfordescribingtheimage. Notehowever,thatforgeneralXMLthereisnosemanticmodelthatdefinesthe interactionswithinXMLdocumentswithelementsand/orattributesfromavarietyof namespaces.Eachapplicationmustdefinehownamespacesinteractandwhat effectthenamespaceofanelementhasontheelement'sancestors,siblings,and descendants. SeeTAGissuesmixedUIXMLNamespace33(concerningthemeaningofa documentcomposedofcontentinmultiplenamespaces),xmlFunctions34 (concerningoneapproachformanagingXMLtransformationandcomposability), andRDFinXHTML35(concerningtheinterpretationofRDFwhenembeddedinan
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XHTMLdocument).
4.3.SeparationofContent,Presentation,andInteraction
TheWebisaheterogeneousenvironmentwhereawidevarietyofagentsprovide accesstocontenttouserswithawidevarietyofcapabilities.Itisgoodpracticefor authorstocreatecontentthatcanreachthewidestpossibleaudience,including userswithgraphicaldesktopcomputers,handhelddevicesandmobilephones, userswithdisabilitieswhomayrequirespeechsynthesizers,anddevicesnotyet imagined.Furthermore,authorscannotpredictinsomecaseshowanagentwill displayorprocesstheircontent.Experienceshowsthattheseparationofcontent, presentation,andinteractionpromotesthereuseanddeviceindependenceof contentthisfollowsfromtheprincipleoforthogonalspecifications(5.1). Thisseparationalsofacilitatesreuseofauthoredsourcecontentacrossmultiple deliverycontexts.Sometimes,functionaluserexperiencessuitedtoanydelivery contextcanbegeneratedbyusinganadaptationprocessappliedtoa representationthatdoesnotdependontheaccessmechanism.Formore informationaboutprinciplesofdeviceindependence,see[DIPRINCIPLES].
Goodpractice:Separationofcontent,presentation,interaction AspecificationSHOULDallowauthorstoseparatecontentfromboth presentationandinteractionconcerns. Notethatwhencontent,presentation,andinteractionareseparatedbydesign, agentsneedtorecombinethem.Thereisarecombinationspectrum,with"client doesall"atoneendand"serverdoesall"attheother. Thereareadvantagestoeachapproach.Forinstancewhenaclient(suchasa mobilephone)communicatesdevicecapabilitiestotheserver(forexample,using CC/PP),theservercantailorthedeliveredcontenttofitthatclient.Theservercan, forexample,enablefasterdownloadsbyadjustinglinkstorefertolowerresolution images,smallervideoornovideoatall.Similarly,ifthecontenthasbeenauthored withmultiplebranches,theservercanremoveunusedbranchesbeforedelivery.In addition,bytailoringthecontenttomatchthecharacteristicsofatargetclient,the servercanhelpreduceclientsidecomputation.However,specializingcontentin thismannerreducescachingefficiency. Ontheotherhand,designingcontentthatthatcanberecombinedontheclientalso tendstomakethatcontentapplicabletoawiderrangeofdevices.Thisdesignalso improvescachingefficiencyandoffersusersmorepresentationoptions.Media dependentstylesheetscanbeusedtotailorthecontentontheclientsideto particulargroupsoftargetdevices.Fortextualcontentwitharegularandrepeating structure,thecombinedsizeofthetextcontentplusthestylesheetistypicallyless thanthatoffullyrecombinedcontentthesavingsimprovefurtherifthestylesheet isreusedbyotherpages. Inpracticeacombinationofbothapproachesisoftenused.Thedesigndecision aboutwhereonthisspectrumanapplicationshouldbeplaceddependsonthe powerontheclient,thepowerandtheloadontheserver,andthebandwidthofthe
mediumthatconnectsthem.Ifthenumberofpossibleclientsisunbounded,the
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mediumthatconnectsthem.Ifthenumberofpossibleclientsisunbounded,the applicationwillscalebetterifmorecomputationispushedtotheclient. Ofcourse,itmaynotbedesirabletoreachthewidestpossibleaudience. Designersshouldconsiderappropriatetechnologies,suchasencryptionand accesscontrol(3.5.2),forlimitingtheaudience. Somedataformatsaredesignedtodescribepresentation(includingSVGandXSL FormattingObjects).Dataformatssuchasthesedemonstratethatonecanonly separatecontentfrompresentation(orinteraction)sofaratsomepointitbecomes necessarytotalkaboutpresentation.Pertheprincipleoforthogonalspecifications (5.1)thesedataformatsshouldonlyaddresspresentationissues. SeetheTAGissuesformattingProperties19(concerninginteroperabilityinthe caseofformattingpropertiesandnames)andcontentPresentation26(concerning theseparationofsemanticandpresentationalmarkup).
4.4.Hypertext
AdefiningcharacteristicoftheWebisthatitallowsembeddedreferencestoother resourcesviaURIs.ThesimplicityofcreatinghypertextlinksusingabsoluteURIs (< ah r e f = " h t t p : / / w w w . e x a m p l e . c o m / f o o " > )andrelativeURIreferences(< a h r e f = " f o o " > and< ah r e f = " f o o # a n c h o r " > )ispartly(perhapslargely)responsible forthesuccessofthehypertextWebasweknowittoday. Whenarepresentationofoneresourcecontainsareferencetoanotherresource, expressedwithaURIidentifyingthatotherresource,thisconstitutesalinkbetween thetworesources.Additionalmetadatamayalsoformpartofthelink(see [XLink10],forexample).Note:Inthisdocument,theterm"link"generallymeans "relationship",not"physicalconnection".
Goodpractice:Linkidentification AspecificationSHOULDprovidewaystoidentifylinkstoother resources,includingtosecondaryresources(viafragmentidentifiers). FormatsthatallowcontentauthorstouseURIsinsteadoflocalidentifierspromote thenetworkeffect:thevalueoftheseformatsgrowswiththesizeofthedeployed Web.
Goodpractice:Weblinking AspecificationSHOULDallowWebwidelinking,notjustinternal documentlinking.
Goodpractice:GenericURIs
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AspecificationSHOULDallowcontentauthorstouseURIswithout constrainingthemtoalimitedsetofURIschemes. WhatagentsdowithahypertextlinkisnotconstrainedbyWebarchitectureand maydependonapplicationcontext.Usersofhypertextlinksexpecttobeableto navigateamongrepresentationsbyfollowinglinks.
Goodpractice:Hypertextlinks AdataformatSHOULDincorporatehypertextlinksifhypertextisthe expecteduserinterfaceparadigm. Dataformatsthatdonotallowcontentauthorstocreatehypertextlinksleadtothe creationof"terminalnodes"ontheWeb. 4.4.1.URIreferences LinksarecommonlyexpressedusingURIreferences(definedinsection4.2of [URI]),whichmaybecombinedwithabaseURItoyieldausableURI.Section5.1 of[URI]explainsdifferentwaystoestablishabaseURIforaresourceand establishesaprecedenceamongthem.Forinstance,thebaseURImaybeaURI fortheresource,orspecifiedinarepresentation(seetheb a s e elementsprovided byHTMLandXML,andtheHTTP'ContentLocation'header).Seealsothesection onlinksinXML(4.5.2). AgentsresolveaURIreferencebeforeusingtheresultingURItointeractwith anotheragent.URIreferenceshelpincontentmanagementbyallowingcontent authorstodesignarepresentationlocally,i.e.,withoutconcernforwhichglobal identifiermaylaterbeusedtorefertotheassociatedresource.
4.5.XMLBasedDataFormats
ManydataformatsareXMLbased,thatistosaytheyconformtothesyntaxrules definedintheXMLspecification[XML10]or[XML11].Thissectiondiscusses issuesthatarespecifictosuchformats.Anyoneseekingguidanceinthisareais urgedtoconsultthe"GuidelinesFortheUseofXMLinIETFProtocols"[IETFXML], whichcontainsathoroughdiscussionoftheconsiderationsthatgovernwhetheror notXMLoughttobeused,aswellasspecificguidelinesonhowitoughttobe used.WhileitisdirectedatInternetapplicationswithspecificreferenceto protocols,thediscussionisgenerallyapplicabletoWebscenariosaswell. Thediscussionhereshouldbeseenasancillarytothecontentof[IETFXML].Refer alsoto"XMLAccessibilityGuidelines"[XAG]forhelpdesigningXMLformatsthat lowerbarrierstoWebaccessibilityforpeoplewithdisabilities. 4.5.1.WhentouseanXMLbasedformat XMLdefinestextualdataformatsthatarenaturallysuitedtodescribingdataobjects whicharehierarchicalandprocessedinachosensequence.Itiswidely,butnot
universally,applicablefordataformatsanaudioorvideoformat,forexample,is
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universally,applicablefordataformatsanaudioorvideoformat,forexample,is unlikelytobewellsuitedtoexpressioninXML.Designconstraintsthatwould suggesttheuseofXMLinclude: 1. Requirementforahierarchicalstructure. 2. Needforawiderangeoftoolsonavarietyofplatforms. 3. Needfordatathatcanoutlivetheapplicationsthatcurrentlyprocessit. 4. Abilitytosupportinternationalizationinaselfdescribingwaythatmakes confusionovercodingoptionsunlikely. 5. Earlydetectionofencodingerrorswithnorequirementto"workaround"such errors. 6. Ahighproportionofhumanreadabletextualcontent. 7. PotentialcompositionofthedataformatwithotherXMLencodedformats. 8. Desirefordataeasilyparsedbybothhumansandmachines. 9. Desireforvocabulariesthatcanbeinventedinadistributedmannerand combinedflexibly. 4.5.2.LinksinXML SophisticatedlinkingmechanismshavebeeninventedforXMLformats.XPointer allowslinkstoaddresscontentthatdoesnothaveanexplicit,namedanchor. [XLink]isanappropriatespecificationforrepresentinglinksinhypertext(4.4)XML applications.XLinkallowslinkstohavemultipleendsandtobeexpressedeither inlineorin"linkbases"storedexternaltoanyoralloftheresourcesidentifiedby thelinksitcontains. DesignersofXMLbasedformatsmayconsiderusingXLinkand,fordefining fragmentidentifiersyntax,usingtheXPointerframeworkandXPointerelement() Schemes. XLinkisnottheonlylinkingdesignthathasbeenproposedforXML,norisit universallyacceptedasagooddesign.SeealsoTAGissuexlinkScope23. 4.5.3.XMLnamespaces ThepurposeofanXMLnamespace(definedin[XMLNS])istoallowthe deploymentofXMLvocabularies(inwhichelementandattributenamesare defined)inaglobalenvironmentandtoreducetheriskofnamecollisionsina givendocumentwhenvocabulariesarecombined.Forexample,theMathMLand SVGspecificationsbothdefinethes e t element.AlthoughXMLdatafromdifferent formatssuchasMathMLandSVGcanbecombinedinasingledocument,inthis casetherecouldbeambiguityaboutwhichs e t elementwasintended.XML namespacesreducetheriskofnamecollisionsbytakingadvantageofexisting systemsforallocatinggloballyscopednames:theURIsystem(seealsothesection onURIallocation(2.2.2)).WhenusingXMLnamespaces,eachlocalnameinan XMLvocabularyispairedwithaURI(calledthenamespaceURI)todistinguishthe localnamefromlocalnamesinothervocabularies. TheuseofURIsconfersadditionalbenefits.First,eachURI/localnamepaircanbe mappedtoanotherURI,groundingthetermsofthevocabularyintheWeb.These termsmaybeimportantresourcesandthusitisappropriatetobeabletoassociate URIswiththem. [RDFXML]usessimpleconcatenationofthenamespaceURIandthelocalnameto
createaURIfortheidentifiedterm.Othermappingsarelikelytobemoresuitable
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createaURIfortheidentifiedterm.Othermappingsarelikelytobemoresuitable forhierarchicalnamespacesseetherelatedTAGissueabstractComponentRefs 37. DesignersofXMLbaseddataformatswhodeclarenamespacesthusmakeit possibletoreusethosedataformatsandcombinetheminnovelwaysnotyet imagined.Failuretodeclarenamespacesmakessuchreusemoredifficult,even impracticalinsomecases.
Goodpractice:Namespaceadoption AspecificationthatestablishesanXMLvocabularySHOULDplaceall elementnamesandglobalattributenamesinanamespace. Attributesarealwaysscopedbytheelementonwhichtheyappear.Anattributethat is"global,"thatis,onethatmightmeaningfullyappearonelementsofmanytypes, includingelementsinothernamespaces,shouldbeexplicitlyplacedina namespace.Localattributes,onesassociatedwithonlyaparticularelementtype, neednotbeincludedinanamespacesincetheirmeaningwillalwaysbeclearfrom thecontextprovidedbythatelement. Thet y p e attributefromtheW3CXMLSchemaInstancenamespace "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchemainstance"([XMLSCHEMA],section4.3.2)is anexampleofaglobalattribute.Itcanbeusedbyauthorsofanyvocabularyto makeanassertionininstancedataaboutthetypeoftheelementonwhichit appears.Asaglobalattribute,itmustalwaysbequalified.Thef r a m e attributeonan HTMLtableisanexampleofalocalattribute.Thereisnovalueinplacingthat attributeinanamespacesincetheattributeisunlikelytobeusefulonanelement otherthananHTMLtable. ApplicationsthatrelyonDTDprocessingmustimposeadditionalconstraintsonthe useofnamespaces.DTDsperformvalidationbasedonthelexicalformofthe elementandattributenamesinthedocument.Thismakesprefixessyntactically significantinwaysthatarenotanticipatedby[XMLNS]. 4.5.4.Namespacedocuments
Story Nadiareceivesrepresentationdatafrom"weather.example.com"inan unfamiliardataformat.SheknowsenoughaboutXMLtorecognize whichXMLnamespacetheelementsbelongto.Sincethenamespaceis identifiedbytheURI"http://weather.example.com/2003/format",sheasks herbrowsertoretrievearepresentationoftheidentifiedresource.She getsbacksomeusefuldatathatallowshertolearnmoreaboutthedata format.Nadia'sbrowsermayalsobeabletoperformsomeoperations automatically(i.e.,unattendedbyahumanoverseer)givendatathathas beenoptimizedforsoftwareagents.Forexample,herbrowsermight,on Nadia'sbehalf,downloadadditionalagentstoprocessandrenderthe
format.
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format. AnotherbenefitofusingURIstobuildXMLnamespacesisthatthenamespaceURI canbeusedtoidentifyaninformationresourcethatcontainsusefulinformation, machineusableand/orhumanusable,abouttermsinthenamespace.Thistypeof informationresourceiscalledanamespacedocument.WhenanamespaceURI ownerprovidesanamespacedocument,itisauthoritativeforthenamespace. Therearemanyreasonstoprovideanamespacedocument.Apersonmightwant to: understandthepurposeofthenamespace, learnhowtousethemarkupvocabularyinthenamespace, findoutwhocontrolsitandassociatedpolicies, requestauthoritytoaccessschemasorcollateralmaterialaboutit,or reportabugorsituationthatcouldbeconsideredanerrorinsomecollateral material. Aprocessormightwantto: retrieveaschema,forvalidation, retrieveastylesheet,forpresentation,or retrieveontologies,formakinginferences. Ingeneral,thereisnoestablishedbestpracticeforcreatingrepresentationsofa namespacedocumentapplicationexpectationswillinfluencewhatdataformator formatsareused.Applicationexpectationswillalsoinfluencewhetherrelevant informationappearsdirectlyinarepresentationorisreferencedfromit.
Goodpractice:Namespacedocuments TheownerofanXMLnamespacenameSHOULDmakeavailable materialintendedforpeopletoreadandmaterialoptimizedforsoftware agentsinordertomeettheneedsofthosewhowillusethenamespace vocabulary. Forexample,thefollowingareexamplesofdataformatsfornamespace documents:[OWL10],[RDDL],[XMLSCHEMA],and[XHTML11].Eachofthese formatsmeetsdifferentrequirementsdescribedaboveforsatisfyingtheneedsofan agentthatwantsmoreinformationaboutthenamespace.Note,however,issues relatedtofragmentidentifiersandcontentnegotiation(3.2.2)ifcontentnegotiation isused. SeeTAGissuesnamespaceDocument8(concerningdesiredcharacteristicsof namespacedocuments)andabstractComponentRefs37(concerningtheuseof fragmentidentifierswithnamespacenamestoidentifyabstractcomponents). 4.5.5.QNamesinXML Section3of"NamespacesinXML"[XMLNS]providesasyntacticconstructknown asaQNameforthecompactexpressionofqualifiednamesinXMLdocuments.A
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qualifiednameisapairconsistingofaURI,whichnamesanamespace,anda localnameplacedwithinthatnamespace."NamespacesinXML"providesforthe useofQNamesasnamesforXMLelementsandattributes. Otherspecifications,startingwith[XSLT10],haveemployedtheideaofusing QNamesincontextsotherthanelementandattributenames,forexamplein attributevaluesandinelementcontent.However,generalXMLprocessorscannot reliablyrecognizeQNamesassuchwhentheyareusedinattributevaluesandin elementcontentforexample,thesyntaxofQNamesoverlapswiththatofURIs. ExperiencehasalsorevealedotherlimitationstoQNames,suchaslosing namespacebindingsafterXMLcanonicalization.
Constraint:QNamesIndistinguishablefromURIs DonotallowbothQNamesandURIsinattributevaluesorelement contentwheretheyareindistinguishable. Formoreinformation,seetheTAGfinding"UsingQNamesasIdentifiersin Content". BecauseQNamesarecompact,somespecificationdesignershaveadoptedthe samesyntaxasameansofidentifyingresources.Thoughconvenientasa shorthandnotation,thisusagehasacost.Thereisnosingle,acceptedwayto convertaQNameintoaURIorviceversa.AlthoughQNamesareconvenient,they donotreplacetheURIastheidentificationsystemoftheWeb.TheuseofQNames toidentifyWebresourceswithoutprovidingamappingtoURIsisinconsistentwith Webarchitecture.
Goodpractice:QNameMapping AspecificationinwhichQNamesserveasresourceidentifiersMUST provideamappingtoURIs. SeeXMLnamespaces(4.5.3)forexamplesofsomemappingstrategies. SeealsoTAGissuesrdfmsQnameUriMapping6(concerningthemappingof QNamestoURIs),qnameAsId18(concerningtheuseofQNamesasidentifiersin XMLcontent),andabstractComponentRefs37(concerningtheuseoffragment identifierswithnamespacenamestoidentifyabstractcomponents). 4.5.6.XMLIDsemantics ConsiderthefollowingfragmentofXML:< s e c t i o nn a m e = " f o o " > .Doesthes e c t i o n elementhavewhattheXMLRecommendationreferstoastheIDf o o (i.e.,"foo" mustnotappearinthesurroundingXMLdocumentmorethanonce)?Onecannot answerthisquestionbyexaminingtheelementanditsattributesalone.InXML,the qualityof"beinganID"isassociatedwiththetypeofanattribute,notitsname. FindingtheIDsinadocumentrequiresadditionalprocessing.
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1. ProcessingthedocumentwithaprocessorthatrecognizesDTDattributelist declarations(intheexternalorinternalsubset)mightrevealadeclarationthat identifiesthen a m e attributeasanID.Note:Thisprocessingisnotnecessarily partofvalidation.Anonvalidating,DTDawareprocessorcanrecognizeIDs. 2. ProcessingthedocumentwithaW3CXMLschemamightrevealanelement declarationthatidentifiesthen a m e attributeasanW3CXMLSchemaI D . 3. Inpractice,processingthedocumentwithanotherschemalanguage,suchas RELAXNG[RELAXNG],mightrevealtheattributesdeclaredtobeofIDinthe XMLSchemasense.ManymodernspecificationsbeginprocessingXMLat theInfoset[INFOSET]levelanddonotspecifynormativelyhowanInfosetis constructed.Forthosespecifications,anyprocessthatestablishestheIDtype intheInfoset(andPostSchemaValidationInfoset(PSVI)definedin [XMLSCHEMA])mayusefullyidentifytheattributesoftypeID. 4. Inpractice,applicationsmayhaveindependentmeans(suchasthose definedintheXPointerspecification,[XPTRFR]section3.2)oflocating identifiersinsideadocument. Tofurthercomplicatematters,DTDsestablishtheIDtypeintheInfosetwhereas W3CXMLSchemaproducesaPSVIbutdoesnotmodifytheoriginalInfoset.This leavesopenthepossibilitythataprocessormightonlylookintheInfosetand consequentlywouldfailtorecognizeschemaassignedIDs. SeetheTAGissuexmlIDSemantics32foradditionalbackgroundinformationand [XMLID]forasolutionunderdevelopment. 4.5.7.MediatypesforXML RFC3023definestheInternetmediatypes"application/xml"and"text/xml",and describesaconventionwherebyXMLbaseddataformatsuseInternetmediatypes witha"+xml"suffix,forexample"image/svg+xml". Therearetwoproblemsassociatedwiththetextmediatypes:First,fordata identifiedas"text/*",Webintermediariesareallowedto"transcode",i.e.,convert onecharacterencodingtoanother.Transcodingmaymaketheselfdescription falseormaycausethedocumenttobenotwellformed.
Goodpractice:XMLand"text/*" Ingeneral,arepresentationproviderSHOULDNOTassignInternet mediatypesbeginningwith"text/"toXMLrepresentations. Second,representationswhoseInternetmediatypesbeginwith"text/"arerequired, unlessthec h a r s e t parameterisspecified,tobeconsideredtobeencodedinUS ASCII.SincethesyntaxofXMLisdesignedtomakedocumentsselfdescribing,it isgoodpracticetoomitthec h a r s e t parameter,andsinceXMLisveryoftennot encodedinUSASCII,theuseof"text/"Internetmediatypeseffectivelyprecludes thisgoodpractice.
Goodpractice:XMLandcharacterencodings
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Ingeneral,arepresentationproviderSHOULDNOTspecifythe characterencodingforXMLdatainprotocolheaderssincethedatais selfdescribing. 4.5.8.FragmentidentifiersinXML Thesectiononmediatypesandfragmentidentifiersemantics(3.2.1)discusses theinterpretationoffragmentidentifiers.DesignersofanXMLbaseddataformat specificationshoulddefinethesemanticsoffragmentidentifiersinthatformat.The XPointerFramework[XPTRFR]providesaninteroperablestartingpoint. Whenthemediatypeassignedtorepresentationdatais"application/xml",thereare nosemanticsdefinedforfragmentidentifiers,andauthorsshouldnotmakeuseof fragmentidentifiersinsuchdata.Thesameistrueiftheassignedmediatypehas thesuffix"+xml"(definedin"XMLMediaTypes"[RFC3023]),andthedataformat specificationdoesnotspecifyfragmentidentifiersemantics.Inshort,justknowing thatcontentisXMLdoesnotprovideinformationaboutfragmentidentifier semantics. Manypeopleassumethatthefragmentidentifier# a b c ,whenreferringtoXMLdata, identifiestheelementinthedocumentwiththeID"abc".However,thereisno normativesupportforthisassumption.ArevisionofRFC3023isexpectedto addressthis. SeeTAGissuefragmentInXML28.
4.6.FutureDirectionsforDataFormats
Dataformatsenablethecreationofnewapplicationstomakeuseoftheinformation spaceinfrastructure.TheSemanticWebisonesuchapplication,builtontopof RDF[RDFXML].ThisdocumentdoesnotdiscusstheSemanticWebindetailthe TAGexpectsthatfuturevolumesofthisdocumentwill.SeetherelatedTAGissue httpRange14.
5.GeneralArchitecturePrinciples
AnumberofgeneralarchitectureprinciplesapplytoallthreebasesofWeb architecture.
5.1.OrthogonalSpecifications
Identification,interaction,andrepresentationareorthogonalconcepts,meaning thattechnologiesusedforidentification,interaction,andrepresentationmayevolve independently.Forinstance: ResourcesareidentifiedwithURIs.URIscanbepublishedwithoutbuilding anyrepresentationsoftheresourceordeterminingwhetherany representationsareavailable. AgenericURIsyntaxallowsagentstofunctioninmanycaseswithout knowingspecificsofURIschemes. Inmanycasesonemaychangetherepresentationofaresourcewithout disruptingreferencestotheresource(forexample,byusingcontent
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negotiation). Whentwospecificationsareorthogonal,onemaychangeonewithoutrequiring changestotheother,evenifonehasdependenciesontheother.Forexample, althoughtheHTTPspecificationdependsontheURIspecification,thetwomay evolveindependently.Thisorthogonalityincreasestheflexibilityandrobustnessof theWeb.Forexample,onemayreferbyURItoanimagewithoutknowinganything abouttheformatchosentorepresenttheimage.Thishasfacilitatedtheintroduction ofimageformatssuchasPNGandSVGwithoutdisruptingexistingreferencesto imageresources.
Principle:Orthogonality Orthogonalabstractionsbenefitfromorthogonalspecifications. Experiencedemonstratesthatproblemsarisewhereorthogonalconceptsoccurin asinglespecification.Consider,forexample,theHTMLspecificationwhich includestheorthogonalxwwwformurlencodedspecification.Softwaredevelopers (forexample,of[CGI]applications)mighthaveaneasiertimefindingthe specificationifitwerepublishedseparatelyandthencitedfromtheHTTP,URI,and HTMLspecifications. Problemsalsoarisewhenspecificationsattempttomodifyorthogonalabstractions describedelsewhere.AnhistoricalversionoftheHTMLspecificationaddeda "R e f r e s h "valuetotheh t t p e q u i v attributeofthem e t a element.Itwasdefinedtobe equivalenttotheHTTPheaderofthesamename.TheauthorsoftheHTTP specificationultimatelydecidednottoprovidethisheaderandthatmadethetwo specificationsawkwardlyatoddswitheachother.TheW3CHTMLWorkingGroup eventuallyremovedthe"R e f r e s h "value. Aspecificationshouldclearlyindicatewhichfeaturesoverlapwiththosegoverned byanotherspecification.
5.2.Extensibility
TheinformationintheWebandthetechnologiesusedtorepresentthatinformation changeovertime.Extensibilityisthepropertyofatechnologythatpromotes evolutionwithoutsacrificinginteroperability.Someexamplesofsuccessful technologiesdesignedtoallowchangewhileminimizingdisruptioninclude: thefactthatURIschemesareorthogonallyspecified theuseofanopensetofInternetmediatypesinmailandHTTPtospecify documentinterpretation theseparationofthegenericXMLgrammarandtheopensetofXML namespacesforelementandattributenames extensibilitymodelsinCascadingStyleSheets(CSS),XSLT1.0,andSOAP useragentplugins. AnexampleofanunsuccessfulextensionmechanismisHTTPmandatory extensions[HTTPEXT].ThecommunityhassoughtmechanismstoextendHTTP, butapparentlythecostsofthemandatoryextensionproposal(notablyin
complexity)outweighedthebenefitsandthushamperedadoption.
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complexity)outweighedthebenefitsandthushamperedadoption. Belowwediscussthepropertyof"extensibility,"exhibitedbyURIs,somedata formats,andsomeprotocols(throughtheincorporationofnewmessages). Subsetlanguage:onelanguageisasubset(or"profile")ofasecondlanguageif anydocumentinthefirstlanguageisalsoavaliddocumentinthesecond languageandhasthesameinterpretationinthesecondlanguage. Extendedlanguage:Ifonelanguageisasubsetofanother,thelattersupersetis calledanextendedlanguagethedifferencebetweenthelanguagesiscalledthe extension.Clearly,extendingalanguageisbetterforinteroperabilitythancreating anincompatiblelanguage. Ideally,manyinstancesofasupersetlanguagecanbesafelyandusefully processedasthoughtheywereinthesubsetlanguage.Languagesthatcanevolve thisway,allowingapplicationstoprovidenewinformationwhennecessarywhile stillinteroperatingwithapplicationsthatonlyunderstandasubsetofthecurrent language,aresaidtobe"extensible."Languagedesignerscanfacilitate extensibilitybydefiningthedefaultbehaviorofunknownextensionsforexample, thattheybeignored(insomedefinedway)orshouldbeconsiderederrors. Forexample,fromearlyonintheWeb,HTMLagentsfollowedtheconventionof ignoringunknowntags.Thischoiceleftroomforinnovation(i.e.,nonstandard elements)andencouragedthedeploymentofHTML.However,interoperability problemsaroseaswell.Inthistypeofenvironment,thereisaninevitabletension betweeninteroperabilityintheshorttermandthedesireforextensibility. Experienceshowsthatdesignsthatstriketherightbalancebetweenallowing changeandpreservinginteroperabilityaremorelikelytothriveandarelesslikely todisrupttheWebcommunity.Orthogonalspecifications(5.1)helpreducetherisk ofdisruption. Forfurtherdiscussion,seethesectiononversioningandextensibility(4.2).See alsoTAGissuexmlProfiles29andHTMLDialects.
5.3.ErrorHandling
Errorsoccurinnetworkedinformationsystems.Anerrorconditioncanbewell characterized(e.g.,wellformednesserrorsinXMLor4xxclienterrorsinHTTP)or ariseunpredictably.Errorcorrectionmeansthatanagentrepairsaconditionso thatwithinthesystem,itisasthoughtheerrorneveroccurred.Oneexampleof errorcorrectioninvolvesdataretransmissioninresponsetoatemporarynetwork failure.Errorrecoverymeansthatanagentdoesnotrepairanerrorconditionbut continuesprocessingbyaddressingthefactthattheerrorhasoccurred. Agentsfrequentlycorrecterrorswithoutuserawareness,sparingusersthedetails ofcomplexnetworkcommunications.Ontheotherhand,itisimportantthatagents recoverfromerrorinawaythatisevidenttousers,sincetheagentsareactingon theirbehalf.
Principle:Errorrecovery
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Agentsthatrecoverfromerrorbymakingachoicewithouttheuser's consentarenotactingontheuser'sbehalf. Anagentisnotrequiredtointerrupttheuser(e.g.,bypoppingupaconfirmation box)toobtainconsent.Theusermayindicateconsentthroughpreselected configurationoptions,modes,orselectableuserinterfacetoggles,withappropriate reportingtotheuserwhentheagentdetectsanerror.Agentdevelopersshouldnot ignoreusabilityissueswhendesigningerrorrecoverybehavior. Topromoteinteroperability,specificationdesignersshouldidentifypredictable errorconditions.Experiencehasledtothefollowingobservationsabouterror handlingapproaches. Protocoldesignersshouldprovideenoughinformationaboutanerror conditionsothatanagentcanaddresstheerrorcondition.Forinstance,an HTTP404statuscode(notfound)isusefulbecauseitallowsuseragentsto presentrelevantinformationtousers,enablingthemtocontactthe representationproviderincaseofproblems. Experiencewiththecostofbuildingauseragenttohandlethediverseforms ofillformedHTMLcontentconvincedthedesignersoftheXMLspecification torequirethatagentsfailuponencounteringillformedcontent.Because usersareunlikelytotoleratesuchfailures,thisdesignchoicehaspressured allpartiesintorespectingXML'sconstraints,tothebenefitofall. Anagentthatencountersunrecognizedcontentmayhandleitinanumberof ways,includingbyconsideringitanerrorseealsothesectionon extensibilityandversioning(4.2). Errorbehaviorthatisappropriateforapersonmaynotbeappropriatefor software.Peoplearecapableofexercisingjudgementinwaysthatsoftware applicationsgenerallycannot.Aninformalerrorresponsemaysufficefora personbutnotforaprocessor. SeetheTAGissuecontentTypeOverride24,whichconcernsthesourceof authoritativemetadata.
5.4.ProtocolbasedInteroperability
TheWebfollowsInternettraditioninthatitsimportantinterfacesaredefinedin termsofprotocols,byspecifyingthesyntax,semantics,andsequencingconstraints ofthemessagesinterchanged.Protocolsdesignedtoberesilientinthefaceof widelyvaryingenvironmentshavehelpedtheWebscaleandhavefacilitated communicationacrossmultipletrustboundaries.Traditionalapplication programminginterfaces(APIs)donotalwaystaketheseconstraintsintoaccount, norshouldtheyberequiredto.Oneeffectofprotocolbaseddesignisthatthe technologysharedamongagentsoftenlastslongerthantheagentsthemselves. ItiscommonforprogrammersworkingwiththeWebtowritecodethatgenerates andparsesthesemessagesdirectly.Itislesscommon,butnotunusual,forend userstohavedirectexposuretothesemessages.Itisoftendesirabletoprovide userswithaccesstoformatandprotocoldetails:allowingthemtoviewsource, wherebytheymaygainexpertiseintheworkingsoftheunderlyingsystem.
6.Glossary
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Contentnegotiation Thepracticeofprovidingmultiplerepresentationsavailableviathesame URI.Whichrepresentationisserveddependsonnegotiationbetweenthe requestingagentandtheagentservingtherepresentations. DereferenceaURI AccessarepresentationoftheresourceidentifiedbytheURI. Errorcorrection Anagentrepairsanerrorsothatwithinthesystem,itisasthoughtheerror neveroccurred. Errorrecovery Anagentinvokesexceptionalbehaviorbecauseitdoesnotcorrecttheerror. Extendedlanguage Ifonelanguageisasubsetofanother,thelatteriscalledanextended language. Fragmentidentifier ThepartofaURIthatallowsidentificationofasecondaryresource. Informationresource Aresourcewhichhasthepropertythatallofitsessentialcharacteristicscan beconveyedinamessage. Link Arelationshipbetweentworesourceswhenoneresource(representation) referstotheotherresourcebymeansofaURI. Message Aunitofcommunicationbetweenagents. Namespacedocument AninformationresourceidentifiedbyanXMLNamespaceURIthatcontains usefulinformation,machineusableand/orhumanusable,abouttermsina particularXMLnamespace.Itisuseful,thoughnotmanditory,thattheURI employedasanamespacenameidentifiesanamespacedocument. Representation Datathatencodesinformationaboutresourcestate. Resource AnythingthatmightbeidentifiedbyaURI. Safeinteraction Interactionwitharesourcewhereanagentdoesnotincuranyobligation beyondtheinteraction. Secondaryresource Aresourcerelatedtoanotherresourcethroughtheprimaryresourcewith additionalidentifyinginformation(thefragmentidentifier). Subsetlanguage Onelanguageisasubsetofasecondlanguageifanydocumentinthefirst languageisalsoavaliddocumentinthesecondlanguageandhasthesame interpretationinthesecondlanguage. URI AcronymforUniformResourceIdentifier. URIaliases TwoormoredifferentURIsthatthatidentifythesameresource. URIcollision TheuseofthesameURItorefertomorethanoneresourceinthecontextof Webprotocolsandformats. URIownership ArelationshipbetweenaURIandasocialentity,suchasaperson, organization,orspecification. URIpersistence
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ThesocialexpectationthatonceaURIidentifiesaparticularresource,it shouldcontinueindefinitelytorefertothatresource. URIreference AnoperationalshorthandforaURI. UniformResourceIdentifier(URI) AglobalidentifierinthecontextoftheWorldWideWeb. Unsafeinteraction Interactionwitharesourcethatisnotsafeinteraction. Useragent OnetypeofWebagentapieceofsoftwareactingonbehalfofaperson. WWW AcronymforWorldWideWeb. Web ShortenedformofWorldWideWeb. Webagent Apersonorapieceofsoftwareactingontheinformationspaceonbehalfofa person,entity,orprocess. WorldWideWeb AninformationspaceinwhichitemsofinterestareidentifiedbyUniform ResourceIdentifiers. XMLbasedformat OnethatconformstothesyntaxrulesdefinedintheXMLspecification.
7.References
CGI CommonGatewayInterface/1.1Specification.Availableat http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html. CHIPS CommonHTTPImplementationProblems,O.Threaux,January2003.This W3CTeamSubmissionisavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/chips/. CUAP CommonUserAgentProblems,K.Dubost,January2003.ThisW3CTeam Submissionisavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/cuap. Cool CoolURIsdon'tchangeT.BernersLee,W3C,1998Availableat http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.Notethatthetitleissomewhat misleading.ItisnottheURIsthatchange,itiswhattheyidentify. Eng90 KnowledgeDomainInteroperabilityandanOpenHyperdocumentSystem,D. C.Engelbart,June1990. HTTPEXT MandatoryExtensionsinHTTP,H.FrystykNielsen,P.Leach,S.Lawrence, 20January1998.ThisexpiredInternetDraftisavailableat http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/ietfhttpext/draftfrystykhttpmandatory. IANASchemes IANA'sonlineregistryofURISchemesisavailableat http://www.iana.org/assignments/urischemes. IETFXML IETFGuidelinesForTheUseofXMLinIETFProtocols,S.Hollenbeck,M. Rose,L.Masinter,eds.,2November2002.ThisInternetDraftisavailableat http://www.imc.org/ietfxmluse/xmlguidelines07.txt.Ifthisdocumentisno longeravailable,refertotheietfxmlusemailinglist. INFOSET
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XMLInformationSet(SecondEdition),R.Tobin,J.Cowan,Editors,W3C Recommendation,04February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECxml infoset20040204.Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/xml infoset. IRI IETFInternationalizedResourceIdentifiers(IRIs),M.Drst,M.Suignard, Eds.,November2004.Inan8December2004announcement,theIESG approveddraftduerstiri11asaProposedStandardoftheIETF.References totheIRIspecificationinVolumeOneofArchitectureoftheWorldWideWeb aretothatProposedStandard.OncetheIETFissuesaRequestFor Comments(RFC)numberforthespecification,thisW3CRecommendation maybeupdatedtorefertothatRFC.Seealsothelatestinformationaboutthe IRIspecification. MEDIATYPEREG IANA'sonlineregistryofInternetMediaTypesisavailableat http://www.iana.org/assignments/mediatypes/index.html. OWL10 OWLWebOntologyLanguageReference,M.Dean,G.Schreiber,Editors, W3CRecommendation,10February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC owlref20040210/.Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/owlref/. P3P10 ThePlatformforPrivacyPreferences1.0(P3P1.0)Specification,M. Marchiori,Editor,W3CRecommendation,16April2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/RECP3P20020416/.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/P3P/. RDDL ResourceDirectoryDescriptionLanguage(RDDL),J.Borden,T.Bray,eds.,1 June2003.Thisdocumentisavailableat http://www.tbray.org/tag/rddl/rddl3.html. RDFXML RDF/XMLSyntaxSpecification(Revised),D.Beckett,Editor,W3C Recommendation,10February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECrdf syntaxgrammar20040210/.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfsyntaxgrammar. RELAXNG TheRELAXNGschemalanguageproject. REST RepresentationalStateTransfer(REST),Chapter5of"ArchitecturalStyles andtheDesignofNetworkbasedSoftwareArchitectures",DoctoralThesisof R.T.Fielding,2000.Designersofprotocolspecificationsinparticularshould investtimeinunderstandingtheRESTmodelandtherelevanceofits principlestoagivendesign.Theseprinciplesincludestatelessness,clear assignmentofrolestoparties,uniformaddressspace,andalimited,uniform setofverbs.Availableat http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm. RFC2045 IETFRFC2045:MultipurposeInternetMailExtensions(MIME)PartOne: FormatofInternetMessageBodies,N.Freed,N.Borenstein,November 1996.Availableathttp://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2045.txt. RFC2046 IETFRFC2046:MultipurposeInternetMailExtensions(MIME)PartTwo: MediaTypes,N.Freed,N.Borenstein,November1996.Availableat http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt. RFC2119
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IETFRFC2119:KeywordsforuseinRFCstoIndicateRequirementLevels, S.Bradner,March1997.Availableathttp://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt. RFC2141 IETFRFC2141:URNSyntax,R.Moats,May1997.Availableat http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2141.txt. RFC2326 IETFRFC2326:RealTimeStreamingProtocol(RTSP),H.Schulzrinne,A. Rao,R.Lanphier,April1998.Availableat:http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2326.txt. RFC2397 IETFRFC2397:ThedataURLscheme,L.Masinter,August1998. Availableat:http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2397.txt. RFC2616 IETFRFC2616:HypertextTransferProtocolHTTP/1.1,J.Gettys,J.Mogul, H.Frystyk,L.Masinter,P.Leach,T.BernersLee,June1999.Availableat http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt. RFC2717 IETFRegistrationProceduresforURLSchemeNames,R.Petke,I.King, November1999.Availableathttp://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2717.txt. RFC2718 IETFRFC2718:GuidelinesfornewURLSchemes,L.Masinter,H. Alvestrand,D.Zigmond,R.Petke,November1999.Availableat: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2718.txt. RFC2818 IETFRFC2818:HTTPOverTLS,E.Rescorla,May2000.Availableat: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2818.txt. RFC3023 IETFRFC3023:XMLMediaTypes,M.Murata,S.St.Laurent,D.Kohn, January2001.Availableat:http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3023.txt RFC3236 IETFRFC3236:The'application/xhtml+xml'MediaType,M.Baker,P.Stark, January2002.Availableat:http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3236.txt RFC3261 IETFRFC3261:SIP:SessionInitiationProtocol,J.Rosenberg,H. Schulzrinne,G.Camarillo,et.al.,June2002.Availableat: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3261.txt RFC3920 IETFRFC3920:ExtensibleMessagingandPresenceProtocol(XMPP): Core,P.SaintAndre,Ed.,October2004.Availableat: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3920.txt RFC977 IETFRFC977:NetworkNewsTransferProtocol,B.Kantor,P.Lapsley, February1986.Availableathttp://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc977.txt. SOAP12 SOAPVersion1.2Part1:MessagingFramework,J.Moreau,N.Mendelsohn, H.FrystykNielsen,et.al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation,24June2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/RECsoap12part120030624/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/soap12part1/. SVG11 ScalableVectorGraphics(SVG)1.1Specification, ,J.Ferraiolo,D. Jackson,Editors,W3CRecommendation,14January2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/RECSVG1120030114/.Latestversionavailable athttp://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/. UNICODE TheUnicodeConsortium,TheUnicodeStandard,Version4,ISBN0321
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185781,asupdatedfromtimetotimebythepublicationofnewversions.See http://www.unicode.org/unicode/standard/versionsforthelatestUnicode versionandadditionalinformationonversionsofthestandardandofthe UnicodeCharacterDatabase. URI IETFUniformResourceIdentifiers(URI):GenericSyntax,T.BernersLee,R. Fielding,L.Masinter,Eds.,September2004.Inan18October2004 announcement,theIESGapproveddraftfieldingurirfc2396bis07asaFull StandardoftheIETF.ReferencestotheURIspecificationinVolumeOneof ArchitectureoftheWorldWideWebaretothatFullStandard.OncetheIETF issuesaRequestForComments(RFC)numberforthespecification,this W3CRecommendationmaybeupdatedtorefertothatRFC.Seealsothe latestinformationabouttheURIspecification. UniqueDNS IABTechnicalCommentontheUniqueDNSRoot,B.Carpenter,27 September1999.Availableathttp://www.icann.org/correspondence/iabtech comment27sept99.htm. VOICEXML2 VoiceExtensibleMarkupLanguage(VoiceXML)Version2.0,B.Porter,A. Hunt,K.Rehor,et.al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation,16March2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECvoicexml2020040316/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/voicexml20. XHTML11 XHTML1.1ModulebasedXHTML,S.McCarron,M.Altheim,Editors, W3CRecommendation,31May2001,http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC xhtml1120010531.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/. XLink10 XMLLinkingLanguage(XLink)Version1.0,E.Maler,S.DeRose,D.Orchard, Editors,W3CRecommendation,27June2001, http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/RECxlink20010627/.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/. XMLID xml:idVersion1.0,D.Veillard,J.Marsh,Editors,W3CWorkingDraft(workin progress),07April2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WDxmlid20040407. Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/xmlid/. XML10 ExtensibleMarkupLanguage(XML)1.0(ThirdEdition),F.Yergeau,J.Paoli, C.M.SperbergMcQueen,et.al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation, 04February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECxml20040204.Latest versionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/RECxml. XML11 ExtensibleMarkupLanguage(XML)1.1,J.Paoli,C.M.SperbergMcQueen, J.Cowan,et.al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation,04February2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECxml1120040204/.Latestversionavailable athttp://www.w3.org/TR/xml11/. XMLNS NamespacesinXML1.1,R.Tobin,D.Hollander,A.Layman,et.al.,Editors, W3CRecommendation,04February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC xmlnames1120040204.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlnames11/. XMLSCHEMA XMLSchemaPart1:Structures,D.Beech,M.Maloney,H.S.Thompson,et. al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation,02May2001,
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http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/RECxmlschema120010502/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema1/. XPTRFR XPointerFramework,E.Maler,N.Walsh,P.Grosso,et.al.,Editors,W3C Recommendation,25March2003,http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/RECxptr framework20030325/.Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/xptr framework/. XSLT10 XSLTransformations(XSLT)Version1.0,J.Clark,Editor,W3C Recommendation,16November1999,http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/RECxslt 19991116.Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/xslt.
7.1.ArchitecturalSpecifications
ATAG10 AuthoringToolAccessibilityGuidelines1.0,C.McCathieNevile,I.Jacobs,J. Treviranus,et.al.,Editors,W3CRecommendation,03February2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/RECATAG1020000203.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10. CHARMOD CharacterModelfortheWorldWideWeb1.0:Fundamentals,R.Ishida,M.J. Drst,M.Wolf,et.al.,Editors,W3CWorkingDraft(workinprogress), 25February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WDcharmod20040225/. Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/charmod/. DIPRINCIPLES DeviceIndependencePrinciples,R.Gimson,Editor,W3CNote, 01September2003,http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/NOTEdiprinc20030901/. Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/diprinc/. EXTLANG WebArchitecture:ExtensibleLanguages,T.BernersLee,D.Connolly,10 February1998.ThisW3CNoteisavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTEwebarchextlang19980210. Fielding PrincipledDesignoftheModernWebArchitecture,R.T.FieldingandR.N. Taylor,UCIrvine.InProceedingsofthe2000InternationalConferenceon SoftwareEngineering(ICSE2000),Limerick,Ireland,June2000,pp.407 416.Thisdocumentisavailableat http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/webarch_icse2000.pdf. QA QAFramework:SpecificationGuidelines,D.HazalMassieux,L.Rosenthal, L.Henderson,et.al.,Editors,W3CWorkingDraft(workinprogress), 30August2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WDqaframespec20040830/. Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/qaframespec/. RFC1958 IETFRFC1958:ArchitecturalPrinciplesoftheInternet,B.Carpenter,June 1996.Availableathttp://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1958.txt. SPECVAR VariabilityinSpecifications,L.Rosenthal,D.HazalMassieux,Editors,W3C WorkingDraft(workinprogress),30August2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WDspecvariability20040830/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/specvariability/. UAAG10 UserAgentAccessibilityGuidelines1.0,J.Gunderson,I.Jacobs,E.Hansen, Editors,W3CRecommendation,17December2002, www.w3.org/TR/2004/RECwebarch20041215/#uribenefits http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/RECUAAG1020021217/.Latestversion
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http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/RECUAAG1020021217/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/. WCAG20 WebContentAccessibilityGuidelines2.0,W.Chisholm,J.White,B. Caldwell,et.al.,Editors,W3CWorkingDraft(workinprogress),30July2004, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WDWCAG2020040730/.Latestversion availableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/. WSA WebServicesArchitecture,D.Booth,F.McCabe,E.Newcomer,et.al., Editors,W3CNote,11February2004,http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTEws arch20040211/.Latestversionavailableathttp://www.w3.org/TR/wsarch/. XAG XMLAccessibilityGuidelines,S.B.Palmer,C.McCathieNevile,D. Dardailler,Editors,W3CWorkingDraft(workinprogress),03October2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WDxag20021003.Latestversionavailableat http://www.w3.org/TR/xag.
8.Acknowledgments
ThisdocumentwasauthoredbytheW3CTechnicalArchitectureGroupwhich includedthefollowingparticipants:TimBernersLee(coChair,W3C),TimBray (AntarcticaSystems),DanConnolly(W3C),PaulCotton(MicrosoftCorporation), RoyFielding(DaySoftware),MarioJeckle(DaimlerChrysler),ChrisLilley(W3C), NoahMendelsohn(IBM),DavidOrchard(BEASystems),NormanWalsh(Sun Microsystems),andStuartWilliams(coChair,HewlettPackard). TheTAGappreciatesthemanycontributionsontheTAG'spublicmailinglist, wwwtag@w3.org(archive),whichhavehelpedtoimprovethisdocument. Inaddition,contributionsbyDavidBooth,ErikBruchez,KendallClark,KarlDubost, BobDuCharme,MartinDuerst,OlivierFehr,AlGilman,TimGoodwin,Elliotte RustyHarold,TonyHammond,SandroHawke,RyanHayes,DominiqueHazal Massieux,MasayasuIshikawa,DavidM.Karr,GrahamKlyne,JacekKopecky,Ken Laskey,SusanLesch,HkonWiumLie,FrankManola,MarkNottingham,Bijan Parsia,PeterF.PatelSchneider,DavidPawson,MichaelSperbergMcQueen, PatrickStickler,andYuxiaoZhaoaregratefullyacknowledged.
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09/10/12

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Intheremainderofthisdocument,wehighlightimportantarchitecturalpoints regardingWebidentifiers,protocols,andformats.Wealsodiscusssomeimportant generalarchitecturalprinciples(5)andhowtheyapplytotheWeb.

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

essentialcharacteroftheresource. Wedefinetheterminformationresourcebecauseweobservethatitisusefulin discussionsofWebtechnologyandmaybeusefulinconstructingspecificationsfor facilitiesbuiltforuseontheWeb.

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Story Nadiafollowsahypertextlinklabeled"satelliteimage"expectingto retrieveasatellitephotooftheOaxacaregion.Thelinktothesatellite imageisanXHTMLlinkencodedas< a

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

thatprecachedatafortheuser)canfollowhypertextlinkssafely.Users(oragents actingontheirbehalf)donotcommitthemselvestoanythingbyqueryinga resourceorfollowingahypertextlink.

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Goodpractice:Namespacepolicy AnXMLformatspecificationSHOULDincludeinformationaboutchange policiesforXMLnamespaces. Asanexampleofachangepolicydesignedtoreflectthevariablestabilityofa namespace,considertheW3CnamespacepolicyfordocumentsontheW3C

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Goodpractice:Linkidentification AspecificationSHOULDprovidewaystoidentifylinkstoother resources,includingtosecondaryresources(viafragmentidentifiers). FormatsthatallowcontentauthorstouseURIsinsteadoflocalidentifierspromote thenetworkeffect:thevalueoftheseformatsgrowswiththesizeofthedeployed Web.

Goodpractice:Weblinking AspecificationSHOULDallowWebwidelinking,notjustinternal documentlinking.

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

AspecificationSHOULDallowcontentauthorstouseURIswithout constrainingthemtoalimitedsetofURIschemes. WhatagentsdowithahypertextlinkisnotconstrainedbyWebarchitectureand maydependonapplicationcontext.Usersofhypertextlinksexpecttobeableto navigateamongrepresentationsbyfollowinglinks.

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One

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