[OAI-implementers] question about PMH baseURLs

[Simeon Warner]

The spec says that repositories should support BOTH GET and POST so I think 
this implies that the baseURL should not include a query component (?).

http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/openarchivesprotocol.htm#HTTPRequestFormat
"Repositories must support both the GET and POST methods."

If we wanted to enforce this with the schema (and perhaps rule out relative 
URIs etc.) then I think we would have to constrain the anyURI datatype with 
a pattern (regex).

Cheers,
Simeon



Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> According to the URI standard
> <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-3.4>:
>
> "The query component is indicated by the first question mark ("?")..."
>
> This implies that an OAI-PMH request supporting HTTP GET must have a
> baseURI without a question mark.
>
> If the repository only accepted POST requests, then it could probably
> get away with it. Whether it should or not is another question.
>
> Jeff
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: oai-implementers-bounces at openarchives.org
> [mailto:oai-implementers-
>> bounces at openarchives.org] On Behalf Of Hussein Suleman
>> Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 10:40 AM
>> To: oai-implementers at openarchives.org
>> Cc: Dr. Thomas Staecker
>> Subject: [OAI-implementers] question about PMH baseURLs
>>
>> hi
>>
>> a protocol specification issue: can we have a baseURL that includes a
>> "?" character (see email below from Thomas Staecker).
>>
>> personally, it seems reasonable to me. the schema says anyURI for
>> Identify response, which makes it valid. but the PMH narrative says
> that
>> in order to create a request a harvester can append "?" and a
>> "&"-separated parameter list to the baseURL. this causes a bit of a
>> contradiction.
>>
>> so, should the narrative of the PMH be changed to allow baseURLs with
>> existing embedded parameters? all harvesters will then need to be
> aware
>> of this and check for existing parameters if they are not already
> doing
>> this.
>>
>> other interoperable Web-based systems (Facebook, Sakai) already do
> this
>> quite seamlessly. from our perspective, is a minor change for
> consistent
>> HTTP usage worth the possible need for change to harvesters?
>>
>> thoughts?
>>
>> ttfn,
>> ----hussein
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: oai Repository Explorer
>> Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:55:41 +0200
>> From: Dr. Thomas Staecker <staecker at hab.de>
>> To: hussein at cs.uct.ac.za
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I tried to check our OAI interface against your checker, but it didn't
>> work because your checker assumes that there is a plain base URL. But
> as
>> we host two repositories at the moment we decided to put the base URLs
>> as follows: http://dbs.hab.de/oai/?repository=WDB_OPAC and
>> http://dbs.hab.de/oai/?repository=VKK. Your checker now tries to
> resolve
>> this URL as follows
>> http://dbs.hab.de/oai/?repository=WDB_OPAC?verb=Identify which leads
> to
>> an error due to the double questionmark. Is it possible to avoid the
>> second questionmark?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Thomas
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Thomas Staecker (Leiter Abteilung Alte Drucke, Digitalisierung)
>> Herzog August Bibliothek - Postfach 1364 - D-38299 Wolfenbuettel
>> Tel. +49(0)5331/808-119 - email: staecker at hab.de
>>
>>
>> --
>> =====================================================================
>> hussein suleman ~ hussein at cs.uct.ac.za ~ http://www.husseinsspace.com
>> =====================================================================
>>
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>
>
>
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