[Standards] XMPP URI usage in "HTTP over XMPP"

[Ralph Meijer]

Hi,

The usage of the xmpp URI scheme in the "HTTP over XMPP" proposal does 
not conform to the syntax and semantics defined in RFC 5122. In the 
following I will use URI terminology as defined in RFC 3986 (URI: 
Generic Syntax) to explain how XMPP URIs are structured.

The syntax of any URI is as follows:


         foo://example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#nose
         \_/   \______________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
          |           |            |            |        |
       scheme     authority       path        query   fragment
          |   _____________________|__
         / \ /                        \
         urn:example:animal:ferret:nose

In XMPP URIs, we the define the different components as follows:

 * The authority component is used to denote the entity to authenticate
   as (localpart@domain), before processing the rest of the URI.
 * The path component is the target entity to be communicated with.
 * The query component is for specific interaction semantics and
   subaddressing.

Usually, the authority component is omitted. In this case, the entity 
used for authentication is not specified, and assumed to be whatever the 
processing application chooses from its configuration. An example is:

    <xmpp:ral...@ik.nu>

This is just a reference to my JID. Another example includes a suggested 
interaction:

    <xmpp:ral...@ik.nu?message>

The result of clicking on a link pointing to the URI above could be 
opening up a message entry dialog to send a message to my JID, using a 
pre-defined account (or allowing the user to select on in the dialog).

However, if a specific entity is required to be used for authentication, 
an authority component may be included:

    <xmpp://gu...@example.com/ral...@ik.nu?message>

This requires the application to connect to example.com, authenticate as 
gu...@example.com and then send the message upon completing the dialog.


Back to "HTTP over XMPP", I believe that in general, an authority 
component is not required. One of the examples in the pro-XEP made into 
a proper XMPP URI would probably look like this:

   <xmpp:httpser...@clayster.com/api?;p1=a&p2=b>

Note that due to hysterical reasons, there is a semicolon directly 
following the question mark. The space in between is reserved for 
specifying the so-called querytype, as registered with the XMPP 
Registrar [1]. An example is:

   <xmpp:pubsub.ik.nu?pubsub;node=test>

This points to a Publish-Subscribe node named 'test'.

It might be useful to define such a querytype for "HTTP over XMPP", too.


[1] <http://xmpp.org/registrar/querytypes.html>

--
ralphm