Handling of the case where a resource is created in a non-existent container

[laurensdeb]

MUST [...] unless

does not read easily testable for me.

• Either the server allows auto-creation of the target container, but then probably an additional request parameter should be set, and then the error code SHOULD be 400
• Or the server does not allow POST on a non-existent target container, and then the error code SHOULD be... 500? or 405? (I'm personally not sure what's best here, 405 implies that the server is aware of this potential extension of supporting recursion, but feels quite heavy bookkeeping for server implementers: I would then just suggest 500) (I have a comment on 4xx errors vs 5xx errors later on)

In both cases, given privacy consideration best practices, a server MAY choose to use 404

I think these kinds of error code descriptions might better be merged in a single (sub)section

Originally posted by @bjdmeest in #81

[bjdmeest]

Additional question: what if you have a full path of this/is/an/entire/subtree/that/does/not/exists/create.txt to create?

[TallTed]

As I said in #81 --

MUST [...] unless is a sign of multiple steps having been compressed into one. This often has some utility for humans, but it is a terrible way to specify software algorithms. Without reviewing the completeness or correctness of the analysis above, I will simply suggest that such compressed steps be de-compressed and each such algorithmic expression be stated with complete atomicity.

[TallTed]

what if you have a full path of this/is/an/entire/subtree/that/does/not/exists/create.txt to create?

Consider UNIX-like mkdir -p --

Create intermediate directories as required. If this option is not specified, the full path prefix of each operand must already exist. On the other hand, with this option specified, no error will be reported if a directory given as an operand already exists. Intermediate directories are created with permission bits of rwxrwxrwx (0777) as modified by the current umask, plus write and search permission for the owner.

[pchampin]

Additional question: what if you have a full path of this/is/an/entire/subtree/that/does/not/exists/create.txt to create?

since LWS departs from slash semantics, I don't see how we can normatively say anything about this case...
Sure, implementations that follow slash semantics could "do the right thing" in this case, but that has to be implementation-specific.

[acoburn]

The specific text referred to is from section 9.2 Create resource

If the target container /alice/notes/ does not exist, the server MUST return a 404 error status unless another status code is more appropriate.

This particular line is further complicated by the fact that it mixes normative language with non-normative examples.

I would propose removing the entire sentence. A server may legitimately return 401, 403 or any 4xx status code to represent an error. Our examples could show a server response with a 404 error, but I do not think we should mandate a particular status code.