Individual Submission L. Dusseault
Internet-Draft OSAF
Expires: December 24, 2007 J. Snell
June 22, 2007
PATCH Method for HTTP
draft-dusseault-http-patch-07
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Abstract
Several applications extending HTTP require a feature to do partial
resource modification. Existing HTTP functionality only allows a
complete replacement of a document. This proposal adds a new HTTP
method, PATCH, to modify an existing HTTP resource.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. PATCH Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. PATCH Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.1. Success Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2. Error handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Advertising Support in OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Delta Encodings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix B. Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
B.1. Changes from -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
B.2. Changes from -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
B.3. Changes from -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
B.4. Changes from -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
B.5. Changes from -04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
B.6. Changes from -05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
B.7. Changes from -06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendix C. Notes to RFC Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
This specification defines a new HTTP 1.1 [1] method PATCH that is
used to apply partial modifications to a HTTP resource. A new method
is necessary to improve interoperability and prevent errors. The PUT
method is already defined to overwrite a resource with a complete new
body, and MUST NOT be reused to do partial changes. Otherwise,
proxies and caches and even clients and servers may get confused as
to the result of the operation.
Note that byte ranges are already used in HTTP to do partial
downloads (GET method) as defined in RFC2616. However, they are not
defined for uploads, and there are some missing pieces for uploads.
For example, the HTTP specification does not define a particularly
informative error to send if the byte range in a PUT is invalid.
Byte ranges (or some other kind of range) could be made to work in
this specification but a more flexible mechanism (one that could also
encompass XML delta encodings) was desired, as well as a method that
would not confuse caching proxies.
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2. Mechanisms
2.1. PATCH Method
The PATCH method requests that a set of changes described in the
request entity be applied to the resource identified by the Request-
URI. The set of changes is represented in a format called a "delta
encoding" identified by a media type and MUST include sufficient
information to allow the server to recreate the changes necessary to
convert the original version of the resource into the desired
version. The server MUST NOT create a new resource with the contents
of the request body, although it MAY (depending on the delta
encoding) apply the request body to an empty resource. The recipient
of the entity MUST NOT ignore any Content-* (e.g. Content-Range)
headers that it does not understand or implement and MUST return a
501 (Not Implemented) response in such cases.
The server SHOULD always apply the entire patch atomically and never
provide (e.g. in response to a GET during this operation) a
partially-patched body. If the entire delta encoding cannot be
successfully applied then the server MUST fail the entire request,
applying none of the changes. See error handling section for details
on status codes and possible error conditions.
The actual method for determining how to apply the delta encoding to
the resource is defined entirely by the origin server.
If the request passes through a cache and the Request-URI identifies
one or more currently cached entities, those entries SHOULD be
treated as stale. Responses to this method are not cacheable.
Collisions from multiple requests are more dangerous than PUT
collisions, because a delta encoding that is not operating from a
known base point may corrupt the resource. Therefore, the client
MUST verify that it is applying the delta encoding to a known entity
by first acquiring the strong ETag of the resource to be modified,
and using that Etag in the If-Match header on the PATCH request to
make sure the resource is still unchanged. If a strong ETag is not
available for a given resource, the client MUST use If-Unmodified-
Since as a less-reliable safeguard.
Servers SHOULD provide strong ETags for all resources for which the
PATCH method is supported.
Servers advertise the types of delta encoding documents supported for
PATCH, and clients specify which one they're using by including its
media type in the request using the Content-Type request header.
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Simple PATCH example
PATCH /file.txt HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Content-type: application/delta
If-Match: "e0023aa4e"
Content-Length: 100
[description of changes]
Figure 1
This example illustrates use of a hypothetical delta encoding on an
existing text file.
2.2. PATCH Response
2.2.1. Success Response
A response with a 2xx status code indicates that the PATCH request
was a success. The server MAY include a representation of the
modified resource in the response and MAY include appropriate
Content-* headers to allow the client to verify the success of the
operation.
As with PUT, the PATCH method MUST change the resource's ETag if the
resulting entity is not identical to the original. If the server
supports strong ETags, the server MUST return a strong ETag for use
in future client operations. The server MUST return the Last-
Modified header if it does not support strong ETags.
Successful PATCH response to existing text file
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
ETag: "e0023aa4f"
Content-MD5: Q2hlY2sgSW50ZWdyaXR5IQ==
Content-Type: text/plain
[modified resource]
2.2.2. Error handling
There are several known conditions under which a PATCH request can
fail.
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Malformed Delta Encoding: Specified using a 400 Bad Request when the
server finds that the delta encoding provided by the client was
badly formatted or non-compliant. The definition of badly
formatted or non-compliant depends on the delta encoding chosen,
but generally if the server finds it can't handle the current
patch even though it supports the format used, this error ought to
be appropriate.
Unsupported Delta Encoding: Specified using a 415 Unsupported Media
Type when the client sends a delta encoding that the server
doesn't support for the resource identified by the Request-URI.
Such a response SHOULD include an Accept-Patch response header as
described in Section 2.3 to notify the client what delta encoding
formats are supported.
Patch Conflict: Specified with a 409 Conflict when the server
understands the delta encoding and the delta encoding looks valid,
but it cannot be applied to the resource. There are a number of
ways the resource could conflict with the delta encoding, for
example:
* The client attempted to apply a delta encoding to an empty
file, but the delta encoding chosen cannot be applied to an
empty file.
* The client attempted to apply a structural delta algorithm and
the structures assumed to exist didn't exist (e.g. an XML delta
which specifies changing element 'foo' to element 'bar' but
element 'foo' doesn't exist).
Concurrent modification: Specified with a 412 Precondition Failed
when a client attempts to apply a delta encoding to a resource
whose state has changed since the delta encoding was created.
Invalid Result: Specified with a 409 Conflict when the resource
could be patched but the result of the patch would be a resource
which is invalid. This could mean, for example, that a XML
resource would become an invalid XML file.
Other status codes MAY also be used under the appropriate
circumstances. For example, an unauthenticated user may be prompted
to authenticate, in order to use PATCH, with "401 Unauthorized". An
authenticated user who does not have sufficient privilege to use
PATCH may receive a "403 Forbidden" response.
The entity body of error responses SHOULD contain enough information
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to communicate the nature of the error to the client. The content-
type of the response entity can vary across implementations. XML
error responses as defined by [RFC2518bis] MAY be used.
2.2.2.1. Example error response with body detail
HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: xxx
Invalid result
2.3. Advertising Support in OPTIONS
The server advertises its support for the PATCH method with OPTIONS
response headers. The "Allow" OPTIONS header is already defined in
HTTP 1.1 to contain all the allowed methods on the addressed
resource, so the server MUST add PATCH if it is allowed.
Clients also need to know whether the server supports specific delta
encoding formats, so this document introduces a new response header
"Accept-Patch" used to specify the delta encoding formats accepted by
the server. "Accept-Patch" MUST appear in the OPTIONS response for
any resource where the PATCH method is shown as an allowed method.
OPTIONS * is not used to advertise support for PATCH because the
patch formats supported are likely to change from one resource to
another. A server MAY include the Accept-Patch header in response to
OPTIONS *, and its value MAY be the union of known supported delta
encodings for all types of resources.
Accept-Patch = "Accept-Patch" ":" #( media-range )
The Accept-Patch header specifies a listing of media ranges as
defined by RFC2616 Section 14.1. Note that, unlike the HTTP Accept
request header, the Accept-Patch header does not use quality factors.
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Example: OPTIONS request and response for specific resource
[request]
OPTIONS /example/buddies.xml HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
[response]
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS, HEAD, TRACE, DELETE, PATCH
Accept-Patch: application/diff, application/diff+xml
The examples show a server that supports PATCH generally using two
hypothetical delta encodings.
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3. Delta Encodings
There is no guarantee that a resource can be modified with PATCH.
Further, it is expected that different delta encodings will be
appropriate for different types of resources and that no single delta
encoding will be appropriate for all types of resources. Therefore,
there is no single default delta encoding that implementations are
required to support. Servers MUST ensure that a received delta
encoding is appropriate for the type of resource identified by the
Request-URI.
Byte-based or binary delta encodings are useful for many types of
resources as long as the server stores resources identically to the
way they're presented on the wire (or can behave as if it does).
Character-based delta encodings operate on a variable number of bytes
depending on the length of each character, thus correct use of these
algorithms depends on the encoding of the resource. Such delta
encodings MUST either use the same character set encoding as the
resource being modified or MUST produce an otherwise valid result.
The validity of the result is dependent on the type of resource being
modified.
Structure-based delta encodings allow changes to be applied
independent of exact formats or canonicalizations. For example, a
delta encoding format targeted at the modification of XML-based
resources may allow for the insertion or deletion of elements and
attributes without concern for the exact serialization of those in
the modified resource.
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4. IANA Considerations
This document does not specify any actions for IANA.
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5. Security Considerations
The security considerations for PATCH are nearly identical to the
security considerations for PUT. In addition, one might be concerned
that a document that is patched might be more likely to be corrupted,
but that concern can be addressed through the use of mechanisms such
as conditional requests using ETags and the If-Match request header.
Sometimes an HTTP intermediary might try to detect viruses being sent
via HTTP by checking the body of the PUT/POST request or GET
response. The PATCH method complicates such watch-keeping because
neither the source document nor the patch document might be a virus,
yet the result could be. This security consideration is not
materially different from those already introduced by byte-range
downloads, downloading patch documents, uploading zipped (compressed)
files and so on.
Individual delta encodings will have their own specific security
considerations that will likely vary depending on the types of
resources being patched. The considerations for patched binary
resources, for instance, will be different than those for patched XML
documents.
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6. Normative References
[1] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L.,
Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol --
HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
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Appendix A. Acknowledgements
PATCH is not a new concept, it first appeared in HTTP in drafts of
version 1.1 written by Roy Fielding and Henrik Frystyk.
Thanks to Adam Roach, Chris Sharp, Julian Reschke, Geoff Clemm, Scott
Lawrence, Jeffrey Mogul, Roy Fielding, Greg Stein, Jim Luther, Alex
Rousskov, Jamie Lokier, Joe Hildebrand, Mark Nottingham and Michael
Balloni for review and advice on this document.
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Appendix B. Changes
B.1. Changes from -00
OPTIONS support: removed "Patch" header definition and used Allow and
new "Accept-Patch" headers instead.
Supported delta encodings: removed vcdiff and diffe as these do not
have defined MIME types and did not seem to be strongly desired.
PATCH method definition: Clarified cache behavior.
B.2. Changes from -01
Removed references to XCAP - not yet a RFC.
Fixed use of MIME types (this "fix" now obsolete)
Explained how to use MOVE or COPY in conjunction with PATCH, to
create a new resource based on an existing resource in a different
location.
B.3. Changes from -02
Clarified that MOVE and COPY are really independent of PATCH.
Clarified when an ETag must change, and when Last-Modified must be
used.
Clarified what server should do if both Content-Type and IM headers
appear in PATCH request.
Filled in missing reference to DeltaV and ACL RFCs.
Stopped using 501 Unsupported for unsupported delta encodings.
Clarified what a static resource is.
Refixed use of MIME types for patch formats.
Limited the scope of some restrictions to apply only to usage of
required diff format.
B.4. Changes from -03
Various typographical, terminology consistency, and other minor
clarifications or fixes.
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B.5. Changes from -04
Moved paragraphs on ACL and RFC3229 interoperability to new section.
Added security considerations.
Added IANA considerations, registration of new namespace, and
discontinued use of "DAV:" namespace for new elements.
Added example of error response.
B.6. Changes from -05
Due to various concerns it didn't seem likely the application/gdiff
registration could go through so switching to vcdiff as required diff
format, and to RFC3229's approach to specifying diff formats,
including use of the IM header.
Clarified what header server MUST use to return MD5 hash.
Reverted to using 501 Unsupported for unsupported delta encodings.
B.7. Changes from -06
The reliance on RFC 3229 defined delta encodings has been factored
out in favor of delta encodings identified by MIME media type.
The required use of DeltaV-based error reporting has been removed in
favor of using basic HTTP status codes to report error conditions.
The Accept-Patch response header has been redefined as a listing of
media-ranges with quality factors, similar to the Accept request
header.
Added James Snell as a co-author.
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Appendix C. Notes to RFC Editor
The RFC Editor should remove this section and the Changes section.
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Authors' Addresses
Lisa Dusseault
Open Source Application Foundation
2064 Edgewood Dr.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
US
Email: lisa@osafoundation.org
James M Snell
Phone:
Email: jasnell@gmail.com
URI: http://www.snellspace.com
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