3.1.1 Abstract Data Model

This section describes a conceptual model of possible data organization that an implementation maintains to participate in this protocol. The described organization is provided to facilitate the explanation of how the protocol behaves. This document does not mandate that implementations adhere to this model as long as the external behavior is consistent with that described in this document.

The source location of this protocol is an entity that maintains a collection of files and the metadata for each file. The files are identifiable by an absolute IRI on that protocol server.

Metadata for a given file consists of a collection of fields. The fields that are defined for a file can vary based on the location of the file on the protocol server. A field can be read-write or read-only based on the field type, the location of the file on the protocol server, and the permission settings for the file.

For files that are created or updated as a result of the CopyIntoItems (section 3.1.4.2) or CopyIntoItemsLocal (section 3.1.4.3) operations, the protocol server maintains the field for the source location in the metadata. The value of this field is set to the source location that was passed in the operation.<2>

The protocol server provides access control restrictions to files and metadata. If a protocol server implements access control restrictions, all of the operations that are provided by this protocol also take into account those restrictions while accessing the files.

Protocol servers provide the ability to mark some files as checked out. In this case, the copy operations take into account the checked-out status when accessing files at the destination locations.

Some locations on a protocol server can be part of a Meeting Workspace site. Although such locations are valid file locations, attempts to use such a location as a destination for a copy operation will fail. The protocol server can proceed with such an operation. For additional information, see section 3.1.4.2.