See https://github.com/attic-labs/noms/blob/master/doc/spelling.... -
In this case, we need to be able to address either a database and a dataset. The presence of a :: makes it unambiguous.
In this case, we need to be able to address either a database and a dataset. The presence of a :: makes it unambiguous.
In our sample data (see https://github.com/attic-labs/noms/blob/master/doc/cli-tour.... for example) we actually have this exact path, and the database is "http://demo.noms.io/cli-tour" and the dataset is "sf-fire-inspections/raw". We need the "::".
Allowing "/" in a dataset name is very convenient (it's common in git branches). Allowing "/" in database names is essential for URLs.
- I remember the Rails community trying to use `;` which broke Mongrel 1. Mongrel's parser was generated from the RFC. There was a huge flame war about that back in the day. The Rails core team at the time thought that Mongrel should make an exception to a reserved character. (And after all was said and done, it got changed back to `/` for that particular use-case).
- When working on IPv6 support about 3 years ago, one of the things I added to an open source Ruby project was IPv6 literals into the URL. This was a case of using `:`. Even though this was defined in the RFC specifying the literal, I found out at that time the Ruby standard library was written in a way that assumes you would never have `:` in the URL other than to delimit the port. I ended up having to do some workarounds for that.
That's with Ruby. I wouldn't be surprised if many other extant libraries parsing URLs that might break -- at least not without escaping those characters.
See: https://perishablepress.com/stop-using-unsafe-characters-in-...
You don't NEED ":". You NEED some sort of delimiter that can clearly distinguish between database and dataset; you happen to pick ':' to satisfy that. There might be a different delimiter that works better.
The other option is to not pretend that is a URL and call that something else.
Post-script: I think this project is a great idea. I'm looking forward to see how it turns out.
So:
http://localhost:8000::dataset
may break code that tries to discern the host name. However:
http://localhost:8000/::dataset
Might not. Further, you could also reserve `_` in your scheme to refer to the default database:
http://localhost:8000/_::dataset
But as I mentioned in my previous reply, there may be unintended consequences. If this is something you guys want to do (and have HTTP/HTTPS URL compatibility) to check it out on different language/platform and see if your scheme breaks things. (And definitely see if Windows library assumes this; Windows file paths uses `:` as a reserved character)
groovy -e "new URL('http://localhost:8000::people')" Caught: java.net.MalformedURLException
Python breaks:
>>> urlparse('http://localhost:8000::people') ParseResult(scheme='http', netloc='localhost:8000::people', path='', params='', query='', fragment='')
You could easily say everything before either ? or ; always refers to a database, and use a query parameter or a semicolon to delineate a dataset. Or you resource paths:
Address a dataset:
http://demo.noms.io/?dataset=cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections/raw
http://demo.noms.io/;cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections/raw
http://demo.noms.io/dataset/cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections/raw
http://demo.noms.io/database/cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections
http://demo.noms.io/catalog/cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections
http://demo.noms.io/database/cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections;raw
http://demo.noms.io/database/cli-tour/sf-fire-inspections?dataset=raw http://demo.noms.io/cli-tour#sf-fire-inspections/raw