AtomAPI URIs

The URIs in the draft AtomAPI RFC are not normative, they are examples. The draft RFC isn't about specifying the form of the URLs that are to be used. Yes, there are guidelines you should follow when creating URIs, but those are just general guidelines. That is an important document and if you're creating server side software you should know it already.

Updated: Now includes the template editing facet.

In the end, it's the server that controls the URI space for that domain. Now, for convenience that space may be mapped to a file system hierarchy, but again, there's no requirement for that to be true. So what does the RFC specify? It lays out the formats of the files that can be returned, and the actions that can be performed on the URIs. Note that URIs are embedded in some of those formats. That embedding, that intertwingling of format and URI, is the crux of hypertext, and we are using HTTP as our protocol, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Here then is an abbreviated description of the AtomAPI as it stands today, with all the example URIs contracted into short names.

Introspection

<introspection xmlns="http://example.com/newformat#" > 
  <create-entry>createURI</create-entry>
  <user-prefs>prefsURI</user-prefs>
  <search-entries>searchURI</search-entries>
  <edit-template>templateURI</edit-template>
</introspection>

SearchResults

<search-results xmlns="http://example.com/newformat#" > 
  <match title="My First Post">entryURI</match>
  <match title="My Second Post">entryURI</match>
</search-results>

FindTemplates

<templates xmlns="http://example.com/newformat#" >
 <template title="Main">templateURI</template> 
 <template title="Story">templateURI</template> 
 <template title="Feed">templateURI</template> 
</templates>

Preferences

<userprefs xmlns="http://example.com/newformat#" > 
   <name>Reilly</name>
   <id>1234</id>
   <email>reilly@example.org</email>
</userprefs>

AtomEntry

<entry xmlns="http://example.com/newformat#" >  
    <title>My First Entry</title> 
    <subtitle>In which a newbie learns to blog...</subtitle> 
    <summary>A very boring entry...</summary> 
 
    <author> 
      <name>Bob B. Bobbington</name> 
      <homepage>http://bob.name/</homepage> 
      <weblog>http://bob.blog/</weblog> 
    </author> 

    <issued>2003-02-05T12:29:29</issued> 
    <created>2003-02-05T14:10:58Z</created> 
    <modified>2003-02-05T14:10:58Z</modified> 
    
    <link>http://example.org/reilly/2003/02/05#My_First_Entry</link>
    <id>urn:example.org:reilly:1</id>
 
    <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:lang="en-us"> 
      <p xmlns="...">Hello, <em>weblog</em> world! 2 < 4!</p> 
    </content>  
</entry>