Re: atom:updated not editable by the client?

[Eric Scheid <eric.scheid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 14/7/05 1:45 AM, "Kyle Marvin" <kmarvin@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> In the table at section 6.2, it says atom:updated is a Round Trip element,
>> which is defined as
>> 
>>    Round Trip Element - An element of an Atom Entry whose value is
>>    enforced by the server and not editable by the client.
>> 
>> Surely that is an error.
> 
> As I understand it (I'm a relative newcomer), the server would change
> the value of  atom:updated when the client does a PUT to update the
> value... but the new value is determined by the server, not the client
> (i.e. it isn't the value in the PUT entry, but a server-determined
> timestamp based upon the time of the PUT).

Problem is the Atom Format spec says this:

    The "atom:updated" element is a Date construct indicating the most
    recent instant in time when an entry or feed was modified in a way the
    publisher considers significant. Therefore, not all modifications
    necessarily result in a changed atom:updated value.

so, either the client needs to be able to edit and set the atom:updated
value directly, or it needs to be able to pass in a flag saying "this is
significant".

Given that the value might not change, even if there were edits of the
content (and subsequent PUTs), then the server would be foolish to rely on
it as a "last-modified" timestamp for purposes of avoiding edit conflicts.

e.