Organization of the Book

This book is divided into five main sections.

Introductory Material

Chapter 1, Introduction, introduces WebDAV, and why and how it was developed. Chapter 2, History of Web and Collaborative Authoring, gives more depth on the technologies that existed prior to WebDAV (FTP, HTTP), and the drawbacks that the WebDAV designers knew they needed to overcome. Chapter 3, HTTP Mechanics, provides a review of HTTP that is only necessary if you're not already familiar with HTTP.

How WebDAV Works

Chapter 4, Data Model, provides an overview of WebDAV functionality by explaining the data model, which is crucial to understanding how WebDAV works. Chapter 5, WebDAV Modifications to HTTP, explains how WebDAV extends HTTP methods. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 describe the practical aspects of how the core WebDAV protocol works. These chapters will be useful to developers of WebDAV-enabled software and custom applications. Chapter 9, Putting the Pieces Together, pulls this material together into extended examples.

WebDAV Extensions

Chapter 11, Versioning, and Chapter 12, Multifile Versioning, introduce the WebDAV versioning standard DeltaV in sufficient depth to enable the reader to read the DeltaV specifications and be able to put details into context. Chapter 13, Access Control, introduces the Access Control specification, which is soon to be a standard.

Software and Custom Applications

Chapter 10, WebDAV Products and Tools, introduces a number of client and server software packages that support WebDAV. Chapter 14, Custom WebDAV Applications, and Chapter 15, Designing WebDAV Applications, discuss what custom applications can do with WebDAV, and how to design such custom applications.

Reference Appendixes

Microsoft and Windows Tips and HTTP Status Codes.

Typographical Conventions

In this book, certain fonts and character types are used to set off certain kinds of words. Here are the conventions and an example of each:

  • HTTP and WebDAV method names are presented in CAPS (COPY).

  • Property names and status codes are shown in Helvetica (creationdate).

  • Headers, XML tags, and code samples are presented in fixed-width Courier New (response). Bold Courier is sometimes used within code samples to draw attention to the most salient parts of the example.

Icons Used

Three icons are used to draw the reader's attention to various sections.

graphics/roadt_icon.jpg

A "curves ahead" sign shows something that might be tricky to understand or implement.

graphics/excd_icon.jpg

An exclamation mark indicates that there's an important recommendation or note in the text. It might be simple, but it's important.

graphics/bomb_icon.jpg

A bomb icon shows a place where the specification is unclear, problematic, or tricky.

References

Many of the references in this book are in a standard recognizable style including the primary author's last name and year of publication:

[Stevens98]

However, I use an odd reference style for IETF standards, because those standards are more commonly known by their IDs or names than by their authors or dates. IETF standards are each issued a Request for Comments (RFC) number:

[RFC2518]

This approach is intended to give the reader a quick idea whether the reference is a protocol standard or some other document.



WebDAV. Next Generation Collaborative Web Authoring
WebDAV. Next Generation Collaborative Web Authoring
ISBN: 130652083
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 146

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