Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) SEARCH

Editors of the IETF Internet Draft "Web Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV) SEARCH" have released a updated version, available
from the RFC Libraries. WebDAV provides a network protocol for creating
interoperable, collaborative applications. XML properties provide
storage for arbitrary metadata, such as a list of authors on Web
resources. These properties can be efficiently set, deleted, and
retrieved using the DAV protocol. DASL, the DAV Searching and Locating
protocol, provides searches based on property values to locate Web
resources. The updated document defines Web Distributed Authoring and
Versioning (WebDAV) SEARCH, an application of HTTP/1.1 forming a
lightweight search protocol to transport queries and result sets that
allows clients to make use of server-side search facilities. It is
based on the expired internet draft for DAV Searching and Locating.
"Requirements for DAV Searching and Locating" describes the motivation
for DASL. In this specification, the terms "WebDAV SEARCH" and "DASL"
are used interchangeably. DASL minimizes the complexity of clients so
as to facilitate widespread deployment of applications capable of
utilizing the DASL search mechanisms. The Query Grammar provides set
of definitions of XML elements, attributes, and constraints on their
relations and values that defines a set of queries and the intended
semantics. DASL at Work: (1) The client constructs a query using the
'DAV:basicsearch' grammar; (2) The client invokes the SEARCH method
on a resource that will perform the search (the search arbiter) and
includes a 'text/xml' or 'application/xml' request entity that contains
the query; (3) The search arbiter performs the query; (4) The search
arbiter sends the results of the query back to the client in the
response. The server MUST send an entity that matches the WebDAV
multistatus format.