Independent Submission
Request for Comments: 6861
Category: Informational
ISSN: 2070-1721

I. Dzmanashvili
January 2013

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

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.

   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].

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>

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.

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: