Network Working Group M. Amundsen Internet-Draft October 9, 2011 Intended status: Informational Expires: April 11, 2012 The Item and Collection Link Relations draft-amundsen-item-and-collection-link-relations-04 Abstract RFC 5988 [RFC5988] standardized a means of indicating the relationships between resources on the Web. This specification defines a pair of reciprocal link relation types that may be used to express the relationship between a collection and its members. Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor) Distribution of this document is unlimited. Comments should be sent to the IETF Apps-Discuss mailing list (see ). Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on April 11, 2012. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the Amundsen Expires April 11, 2012 [Page 1] Internet-Draft The Item and Collection Link Relations October 2011 document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the BSD License. 1. Introduction RFC 5988 [RFC5988] standardized a means of indicating the relationships between resources on the Web. This specification defines a pair of reciprocal link relation types that may be used to express the relationship between a collection and its members. These link relation types can be applied to a wide range of use cases across multiple media types. For example, the 'collection' and 'item' link relation types are used in these media types: 1. OpenSearch 1.1: see Section 4.5.4.1 of [OpenSearch] 2. Maze+XML: see Section 3 of [Maze] 3. Collection+JSON: see Section 5 of [CollectionJSON] 2. Link Relations The following link relations are defined. 2.1. 'item' When included in a resource which represents a collection, the 'item' link relation identifies a target resource that represents a member of that collection. For example, if a resource represents a catalog of products, that same representation may include one or more links to resources which represent members of that catalog. Amundsen Expires April 11, 2012 [Page 2] Internet-Draft The Item and Collection Link Relations October 2011 ...

Product Group X Listing

... View Product X001 View Product X002 ... or, in the case of a Link Header field Link: <...>; rel="item"; title="View Product X001" Link: <...>; rel="item"; title="View Product X002" 2.2. 'collection' When included in a resource which represents a member of a collection, the 'collection' link relation identifies a target resource that represents a collection of which the context resource is a member. For example, if a resource represents a single product in a catalog, that same representation may include a link to a resource which represents a product group to which this single product belongs: Return to Product Group X or, in the case of a Link Header field Link: <...>; rel="collection"; title="Return to Product Group X" Since it is possible that a resource could be a member of multiple collections, multiple 'collection' link relations may appear within the same representation: View other widgets View all discontinued items The target resource representation need not be restricted to representing a list. It may simply be a document that provides details on the collection of which the context resource is a member: Link: <...>; rel="collection"; title="Shakespeare's Collected Works - A History" Amundsen Expires April 11, 2012 [Page 3] Internet-Draft The Item and Collection Link Relations October 2011 3. IANA Considerations IANA is asked to register the 'collection' and 'item' Link Relations below as per [RFC5988]. 3.1. 'item' Link Relation Registration Relation Name: item Description: The target IRI points to a resource that is a member of the collection represented by the context IRI. Reference: See Section 2 3.2. 'collection' Link Relation Registration Relation Name: collection Description: The target IRI points to a resource which represents a collection of which the context IRI is a member. Reference: See Section 2 4. Security Considerations The two link relation types defined in this document are not believed to introduce any new security issues to those which are discussed in Section 7 of RFC5988 [RFC5988]. 5. Internationalisation Considerations The 'item' and 'collection' link relation types do not have any internationalization considerations other than those which are discussed in Section 8 of RFC5988 [RFC5988]. 6. References Amundsen Expires April 11, 2012 [Page 4] Internet-Draft The Item and Collection Link Relations October 2011 6.1. Normative References [RFC5988] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010. 6.2. Informative References [OpenSearch] Clinton, D., "Open Search 1.1", Work in Progress , March 2011, . [Maze] Amundsen, M., "Maze+XML - Format", Web Page , December 2010, . [CollectionJSON] Amundsen, M., "Collection+JSON - Document Format", Web Page , July 2011, . Appendix A. Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Julian Reschke and Mykyta Yevstifeyev. Author's Address Mike Amundsen EMail: mca@amundsen.com URI: http://amundsen.com Amundsen Expires April 11, 2012 [Page 5]