Subject: Link header is representation metadata?

From: Nathan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:50:12 +0000

Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 12.10.2010 01:02, Nathan wrote:
>> I'm looking for a quick bit of guidance on whether the Link header would
>> class as representation metadata 
> 
> The Link header spec says "entity header", which is the terminology we 
> used in HTTPbis until draft 10; so I think it's supposed to fall into 
> the same class as "Content-Language", for example.

Sorry but I need to come back to this one, can I get a definitive 
answer (please :)) on whether the Link header is representation 
metadata (like Content-Type), or not?

TIA,

Nathan

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From: "Roy T. Fielding" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 12:12:48 -0800

On Feb 1, 2011, at 11:50 AM, Nathan wrote:
>> The Link header spec says "entity header", which is the terminology we used in HTTPbis until draft 10; so I think it's supposed to fall into the same class as "Content-Language", for example.
> 
> Sorry but I need to come back to this one, can I get a definitive answer (please :)) on whether the Link header is representation metadata (like Content-Type), or not?

It is sometimes metadata. Some of those times it is representation
metadata, like Content-Type, whereas in other times it can be
resource metadata, like Vary.

And occasionally it is just part of the representation, though that
tends to confuse people who think data == body and headers == meta.

What the link is for depends entirely on the rel value.

....Roy

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From: Nathan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:24:46 +0000

> What the link is for depends entirely on the rel value.

Thanks Roy, that's exactly the answer I was hoping for!

Best,

Nathan