Independent Submission I. Dzmanashvili
Request for Comments: 6861 January 2013
Category: Informational
ISSN: 2070-1721
The "create-form" and "edit-form" Link Relations
Abstract
RFC 5988 standardized a means of indicating the relationships between
resources on the Web. This specification defines link relation types
that may be used to express the relationships between a resource and
an input form for constructing data submissions.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other
RFC stream. The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at
its discretion and makes no statement about its value for
implementation or deployment. Documents approved for publication by
the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6861.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Notational Conventions ..........................................2
3. Link Relations ..................................................3
3.1. The "create-form" Link Relation Type .......................3
3.1.1. Using the "create-form" Link Relation ...............3
3.2. The "edit-form" Link Relation Type .........................3
3.2.1. Using the "edit-form" Link Relation .................4
3.3. Error-Handling Example .....................................4
4. IANA Considerations .............................................4
4.1. The Link Relation Registration "create-form" ...............4
4.2. The Link Relation Registration "edit-form" .................5
5. Security Considerations .........................................5
6. Internationalisation Considerations .............................5
7. Normative References ............................................5
Appendix A. Acknowledgements .......................................6
1. Introduction
RFC 5988 [RFC5988] standardized a means of indicating the
relationships between resources on the Web. This specification
defines link relation types that may be used to express the
relationships between a resource and an input form for constructing
data submissions.
The "create-form" and "edit-form" link relations are intentionally
generic, and they can be used with multiple media types in a wide
variety of use cases.
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
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3. Link Relations
The following link relations are defined.
3.1. The "create-form" Link Relation Type
When included in a response, the "create-form" link relation
indicates a target resource that represents a form that can be used
to append a new member to the link context.
<html>
<ul>
<li>Entry Description 1</li>
<li>Entry Description 2</li>
</ul>
<a href="..." rel="create-form">[Add New Entry]</a>
</html>
or, expressed as a Link header
Link: <...>; rel="create-form"; title="Add New Entry"
3.1.1. Using the "create-form" Link Relation
If the form representation includes a submission URI, this URI MUST
be used to submit the form. The context URI SHOULD be used
otherwise.
If the form representation includes a submission method, this method
MUST be used for submit requests. HTTP's POST method SHOULD be used
otherwise.
3.2. The "edit-form" Link Relation Type
When included in a response, the "edit-form" link relation indicates
a target resource that represents a form that can be used for
updating the context resource.
<html>
...
<ul>
<li>
Entry Description 1
<a href="..." rel="edit-form">[Edit Entry]</a>
</li>
</ul>
...
</html>
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or, expressed as a Link header
Link: <...>; rel="edit-form"; title="Edit Entry"
3.2.1. Using the "edit-form" Link Relation
If the form representation includes a submission URI, this URI MUST
be used to submit the form. The context URI SHOULD be used
otherwise.
If the form representation includes a submission method, this method
MUST be used for submit requests. HTTP's PUT method SHOULD be used
otherwise.
3.3. Error-Handling Example
When submitting forms in unsupported media type format, service may
respond to the client with HTTP's 415 Unsupported Media Type status
code.
HTTP/1.1 415 Unsupported Media Type
Link: <...>; rel="create-form"; title="Create new entry"
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: ...
<html>
Use <a href="..." rel="create-form">
this form
</a> to create a new entry.
</html>
4. IANA Considerations
IANA has registered the "create-form" and "edit-form" link relations
below as per [RFC5988].
4.1. The Link Relation Registration "create-form"
Relation Name:
create-form
Description:
The target IRI points to a resource where a submission form can be
obtained.
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Security considerations:
Automated agents should take care when this relation crosses
administrative domains (e.g., the URI has a different authority
than the current document).
Reference:
See Section 3.
4.2. The Link Relation Registration "edit-form"
Relation Name:
edit-form
Description:
The target IRI points to a resource where a submission form for
editing the associated resource can be obtained.
Security Considerations:
Automated agents should take care when this relation crosses
administrative domains (e.g., the URI has a different authority
than the current document).
Reference:
See Section 3.
5. Security Considerations
See Section 7 of RFC 5988 [RFC5988].
6. Internationalisation Considerations
See Section 8 of RFC 5988 [RFC5988].
7. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC5988] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010.
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Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Jan
Algermissen.
Author's Address
Ioseb Dzmanashvili
EMail: ioseb.dzmanashvili@gmail.com
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