1 Introduction

The HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring—WEBDAV Protocol (WebDAV), as specified in [RFC4918], extends the standard Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) mechanisms that are specified in [RFC2616] to provide file access and content management over the Internet. The WebDAV Protocol enables an Internet-based file system. However, some types of files—for example, files with programmatically-derived content—are not easily managed by WebDAV Protocol. Also, some protocol interactions—for example, the separation of properties and content—are less than optimal for file system usage.

The client extensions in this specification, Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Protocol: Client Extensions, extend the WebDAV Protocol, as specified in [RFC4918], by introducing new headers that both enable the file types that are not currently manageable and optimize protocol interactions for file system clients. These WebDAV Protocol: Client Extensions do not introduce new functionality into the WebDAV Protocol, but instead optimize processing and eliminate the need for special-case processing.

Sections 1.5, 1.8, 1.9, 2, and 3 of this specification are normative. All other sections and examples in this specification are informative.