\documentstyle[rfc,fancyheadings,times]{cernman}
\lhead[]{June 1993}
\chead{The WWW Book}
\rhead[June 1993]{}
\lfoot[\thepage]{Berners-Lee}
\rfoot[Berners-Lee]{\thepage}
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Tim Berners-Lee, CERN\\[0.5cm]
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\begin{center}
\Large\bf\sf
The WWW Book\\[1cm]
\large An attempt to describe most aspects of W3\\[1cm]
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\chapter{World-Wide Web}Documentation on the World Wide Web
is normally picked up by browsing
with a W3 browser. If you need a
printed copy, it is also available
in "laTeX" and "Postscript" formats
by anonymous FTP from node info.cern.ch.\par 
This document introduces the "World
Wide Web Book", a paper document
derived from the hypertext about
the project. The book contains
\begin{itemize}
\item General informaion about the project,
people and history;
\item A list of things to be done, including
how YOU can put data onto the web;
\item A technical discussion of the design
issues in projects such as WWW;
\item Actual details of the implementation
of the WWW project
\item Such low-level details as software
architecures and coding standards
\end{itemize}The text of the book has been automatically
generated from the hypertext, so
it may seem strange in places due
to links in the hypertext which are
not there in the printed copy.\par 
The authors of the material are general
members of the W3 team at CERN, except
where otherwise noted.





\section{WorldWideWeb - Summary}The WWW project merges the techniques
of information retrieval and hypertext
to make an easy but powerful global
information system.\par 
The project is based on the philosophy
that much academic information should
be easily available anywhere. It
aims to allow information sharing
within internationally dispersed
teams, and the dissemination of information
by support groups.  Originally aimed
at the High Energy Physics community,
it has spread to other areas and
attracted much interest in user support,
resource discovery and collaborative
work areas. It is currently the most
advanced information system deployed
on the Internet.\par 
 Clients and server for many platforms
exist and are undercontinual development.
  Much more information about all
aspects of the web is available online
$--$ so skip to "Getting started" if
you have an internet connection.
\subsubsection{Reader view}The WWW world consists of documents,
and links.  Indexes are special documents
which, rather than being read, may
be searched. The result of such a
search is another ("virtual") document
containing links to the documents
found.  A simple protocol (" HTTP
") is used to allow a browser program
to request a keyword search by a
remote information server. \par 
The web contains documents in many
formats. Those documents which are
hypertext,  (real or virtual) contain
links to other documents, or places
within documents. All documents,
whether real, virtual or indexes,
look similar to the reader and are
contained within the same addressing
scheme.\par 
To follow a link,  a reader clicks
with a mouse (or types in a number
if he or she has no mouse). To search
and index, a reader gives keywords
(or other search criteria). These
are the only operations  necessary
to access the entire world of data.
\subsubsection{Information provider view}The WWW browsers can access many
existing data systems via existing
protocols (FTP, NNTP) or via HTTP
and a gateway. In this way, the critical
mass of data is quickly exceeded,
and the increasing use of the system
by readers and information suppliers
encourage each other.\par 
Providing information is as simple
as running the W3 server and pointing
it at an existing directory structure.
The server automatically generates
the a hypertext view of your files
to guide the user around.\par 
To personalize it, you can write
a few SGML hypertext files to give
an even more friendly view.  Also,
any file available by anonymous FTP,
or any internet newsgroup can be
immediately linked into the web.
The very small start-up effort is
designed to allow small contributions.
At the other end of the scale, large
information providers may provide
an HTTP server with full text or
keyword indexing. This may allow
access to a large existing database
without changing the way that database
is managed. Such gateways have already
been made into Oracle(tm), WAIS,
and Digital's VMS/Help systems, to
name but a few.\par 
The WWW model gets over the frustrating
incompatibilities of data format
between suppliers and reader by allowing
negotiation of format between a smart
browser and a smart server. This
should provide a basis for extension
into multimedia, and allow those
who share application standards to
make full use of them across the
web.\par 
This summary does not describe the
many exciting possibilities opened
up by the WWW project, such as efficient
document caching. the reduction of
redundant out-of-date copies, and
the use of knowledge daemons. There
is more information in the online
project documentation, including
some background on hypertext and
many technical notes. 
\subsubsection{Getting Started}You can try the simple line mode
browser  by telnetting to info.cern.ch
(no user or password. From UK JANET,
use the Gateway ).  You can try a
full screen interface "Lynx" by telnetting
to ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu, login in
as "www".  You can also find out
more about WWW in this way. These
are the least sophisticated browsers
$--$ remember that the window-oriented
ones are much smarter! It is much
more efficient to install a browser
on your own machine, and you have
many more facilities. \par 
If you have an X-windows based workstation,
just FTP to FTP.NCSA.UIUC.EDU and
get the binary of NCSA's "Mosaic"
browser in directory /Web/xmosaic.
Download it, uncompress it, set it
executable, and run it.  It will
tell you all you need to know.\par 
If you have an MSDOS machine with
Windows, get the "Cello" browser
from FATTY.LAW.CORNELL.EDU.\par 
If you have a Macintosh, pick up
the MacWWW browser from info.cern.ch,
in  /pub/www/bin/mac.\par 
The line mode browser is currently
available in source form by anonymous
FTP from node  info.cern.ch \lbrack currently
128.141.201.74\rbrack  if you take both
files
\begin{verbatim}
		/pub/www/src/WWWLibrary_v.vv.tar.Z.
		/pub/www/src/WWWLineMode_v.vv.tar.Z.


\end{verbatim}
(v.vv is the version number - take
the latest.) \par 
Also available is a hypertext editor
for the NeXT  (in /pub/www/bin/next),
and many other browers, servers,
and W3-related tools. You must read
the online documentation, including
the latest list of software available
,  to be up to date.\par 
Printable (postscript) documentation
and articles are in /pub/www/doc.
Tim BL






\section{WWW people}This is a list of some of those who
have contributed to the WWW project
, and whose work is linked into this
web. Unless otherwise stated they
are at CERN, Phone +41(22)767 plus
the extension given below or look
them up in the phone book . Address:
1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland. See
also: Wizards at SLAC .
\subsection{Marc Andreesen}National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA), Urbana Champagne,
IL, USA.   Design lead and co-developper
of XMosaic .  $<$marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu$>$.
( more )
\subsection{Eelco van Asperen}Ported the line-mode browser the
PC under PC-NFS; developed a curses
version. Email: evas@cs.few.eur.nl.
\subsection{Carl Barker}Carl was at CERN for a six month
period during his degree course at
Brunel University, UK.  Carl worked
on the server side, on client authentication
and multiple format handling.
\subsection{Eric Bina}$<$img src="People/eric\_bina.gif"$>$Worked on NCSA Mosaic and the HTMLWidget.
( more )
\subsection{Tim Berners-Lee}$<$img src="People/tim.gif"$>$Currently in CN division. Before
coming to CERN, Tim worked on, among
other things, document production
and text processing. He developed
his first hypertext system, "Enquire",
in 1980 for his own use (although
unaware of the existence of the term
HyperText). With a background in
text processing, real-time software
and communications, Tim decided that
high energy physics needed a networked
hypertext system and CERN was an
ideal site for the development of
wide-area hypertext ideas. Tim started
the WorldWideWeb project at CERN
in 1989. He wrote the application
on the NeXT along with most of the
communications software. Phone: 3755,
Email: timbl@info.cern.ch. See bio
, disclaimer
\subsection{Thomas R Bruce}Formerly a staff member in charge
of computer operations at the Cornell
Law School, Tom is now a research
associate working on a variety of
projects involving the dissemination
of legal information on the Internet.
He is the author Cello , an all-singing,
all-dancing WWW browser for Microsoft
Windows.  E-mail:tom@law.mail.cornell.edu.
\subsection{Robert Cailliau}Formerly in programming language
design and compiler construction,
Robert has been interested in document
production since 1975, when he designed
and implemented a widely used document
markup and formatting system. He
ran CERN's Office Computing Systems
group from 87 to 89. He is a long-time
user of Hypercard, which he used
to such diverse ends as writing trip
reports, games, bookkeeping software,
and budget preparation forms.  Robert
is mainly supporting physics experiments
with WWW. The rest of the time, when
he is not doing WWW's public relations,
he is contributing browser software
for the Macintosh platform. Phone:
+41 (22) 767 50 05, Email: cailliau@www1.cern.ch.
Be aware of his diary .
\subsection{Dan Connolly}An early follower of the project,
Dan wrote a private X-Windows editor
for his company, and encouraged the
use of proper SGML and MIME in the
future. He wrote a DTD for HTML and
an HTML legalizer for old files.
The "SGML cop" himself, Dan has put
a lot of work in on the HTML specs.
Dan is now  at Atrium Technologies
and cannot give support for his work
with W3. Email: connolly@atrium.com.
\subsection{Peter Dobberstein}While at the DESY lab in Hamburg
(DE),  Peter did the port of the
line-mode browser onto MVS and, indirectly,
VM/CMS. These were the most difficult
of the ports to date. He also overcame
many incidental problems in making
a large amount of information in
the DESY database available. 
\subsection{"Erwise" team}Kim Nyberg, Teemu Rantanen, Kati
Suominen and Kari Syd\{nmaanlakka
('\{' is 'a' with two dots above it..
we must get some character set description
into HTML!)   (under the supervision
of Ari Lemmke)  are "Erwise".  At
Helsinki Technical University, they
are writing a Motif-based WWW browser
(editor? we can hope...) for their
undergraduate final year project.
The team can be reached as erwise@cs.hut.fi
and Ari as arl@cs.hut.fi.
\subsection{Alain Favre}Alain is an undergraduate  working
with ECP/PT on a browser for Windows
on PCs. Phone: 8265, no email yet.
In CERN mostly in the afternoons.
\subsection{David Foster}With wide experience in networking,
and a current conviction information
systems and PC/Windows being the
way of the future, Dave is having
a go at a MS-Windows browser/editor.
Dave also has a strong interest in
server technology and intelligent
information retrieval algorithms.
\subsection{Jean-Francois Groff}During his stay at CERN as "cooperant",
J-F joined the project in September
1991. He wrote the gateway to the
VMS Help system , worked on a new
modular browser architecure, and
helped support and present WWW at
all levels. He later as consultant
ported the communications code to
DECnet in order to set up servers
for physics experiments., and helped
the Danish Technical Library set
up their W3 server.  JF also worked
for NeXT Europe.  He now is a consultant
in networked information systems
( Contact )  jfg@infodesign.ch
\subsection{Tony Johnson}$<$img src="People/tony\_johnson.gif"$>$Tel: (415) 926 2278, TONYJ@scs.slac.stanford.edu.\par 
Designer of MidasWWW .  Boston University,
collaborating with SLAC, SSC, etc.
A SLAC server expert and a WWWizard
.
\subsection{Paul Kunz}Paul took the W3 word across to SLAC,
installed the clients and inspired
the setting up of servers by the
WWWizards .  Paul spreads enthusiasm
for all sort of good ideas such as
OO programming, NeXTs, etc...
\subsection{Willem van Leeuwen}at NIKHEF, WIllem put up many servers
and has provided much useful feedback
about the w3 browser code.
\subsection{Ari Luotonen}A Technical Student at CERN, in the
project from July 1993 to June 1994.
He will complete his MSc degree at
Tampere University of Technology,
Finland, in May 1995.  Ari is now
working in the Programming Techniques
Group of ECP on the WWW Access Authorization (e-mail: luotonen@dxcern.cern.ch).
\subsection{Jon Mittelhauser}$<$img src="People/jon\_mittelhauser.gif"$>$Works on NCSA Mosaic for MS Windows.
( more )
\subsection{Lou Montulli}$<$em$>$Before WWW$<$/em$>$: $<$img src="People/lou\_montulli2.gif"$>$ $<$em$>$After WWW$<$/em$>$: $<$img src="People/lou\_montulli.gif"$>$
montulli@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Lou is the author of "Lynx", a curses
based hypertext browser, and Lynx
2.0 which is a WWW browser.  He is
a student/employee of the University
of Kansas and is actively spreading
the WWW word to whoever will listen.
Picture .
\subsection{Nicola Pellow}With the project from November 1990
to August 1991, and October 1992
to ??.  A graduate of Leicester Polytechnic,
UK, Nicola wrote the original line
mode browser .  ( More ). Nicola
is now (Oct 92) working on the Mac
browser .
\subsection{Bernd Pollermann}Bernd is responsible for the "XFIND"
indexes on the CERNVM node, for their
operation and, largely, their contents.
He is also the editor of the Computer
Newsletter (CNL), and has experience
in managing large databases of information.
Bernd is in the AS group of CN division.
He has contributed code for the FIND
server which allows hypertext access
to this large store of information.
Phone: 2407, Office: 513-1-16, Email:
bernd@cernvm.cern.ch
\subsection{Steve Putz}$<$img src="People/steve\_putz.gif"$>$Created custom gateway servers to
other information sources. ( more
)
\subsection{Dave Ragget}
dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Dave is the editor of the HTML+ document
type, currently (July 93) in discussion
for more sophisticated documents
than HTML can handle. Dave has written
his own WWW browser, and is working
on authentication and opensubnet
gateways. And that is all just what
he does in his spare time!
\subsection{Tony Sanders}$<$img src="People/tony\_sanders.gif"$>$Member of Technical Staff at Berkeley
Software Design, Inc. currently doing
software development, customer support
and maintaining the BSDI WWW server
(with ambitions of online manuals
and technical support via the Web).
Developed the Plexus HTTP server
(based on the server from cs.indiana.edu
), there are some demos available
online.  Network connectivity is
via a 56K link to Alternet in Austin,
Texas.  Can be reached by Phone:
1-512-251-1937 or Email: . See hyplan
.
\subsection{Arthur Secret}A student at CERN during August and
September 1992, Arthur wrote the
first W3-Oracle gateway .  Arthur
is back at CERN from 1 March to 31
October 1993, working on graphics
formats, scanning and conversion
techniques,  the www code library,
and answering user requests. 
\subsection{Chuck Shotton}Assistant Director, Academic Computing,
U. of Texas Health Science Center
Houston $<$cshotton@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu$>$
(713) 794-5650.  Author of the MacHTTP
, the W3 server for the Macintosh.
\subsection{Jonathan Streets}Online Support group, FNAL. Jonathan
put up a VMS server using DCL and
later C. He helped debug the Mac
browser.
\subsection{Nathan Torkington}"Gnat" has put up all kinds of useful
thing son the web, and contributed
such things as an HTML to TeX converter.
( More )
\subsection{Aleksander Totic}$<$img src="People/aleksander\_totic.gif"$>$Develops Mac Mosaic. ( more )
\subsection{Pei Wei}$<$img src="People/pei\_wei.gif"$>$Pei is the author of " Viola", a
hypertext browser, and the ViolaWWW
variant which is a WWW browser. He
was at the University of California
at Berkeley, Experimental Computing
Facility, now full time with O'Reilly
and Associates, Sebastopol, CA, USA.
Email: wei@xcf.berkeley.edu
\subsection{Bebo White}one of the WWWizards at SLAC, Bebo
enthusiastically spreads the word.
During a short stay at CERN in summer
'92, Bebo put up a number of servers
for information from the Aleph experiment.
\subsection{James Whitescarver}New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Author of the curses based W3 client,
and of a number of server tools.
Email:  jim@eies2.njit.edu 
\subsection{Chris Wilson}$<$img src="People/chris\_wilson.gif"$>$Chris works on NCSA Mosaic and Windows
NT Mosaic. ( more )





\section{Policy}This outlines the policy of  the
W3 project at CERN.  Whilst not legally
binding, this attempts to explain
my understanding of the CERN rules
and the desires of the team at CERN.
\subsection{Aim}The basic aim of the project is to
promote communication and information
availability for the High Energy
Physics (HEP) community.  The project
is based at CERN, whose budget is
provided by contributions of taxpayer's
money from the European member states.
It is in the interests of HEP, CERN,
and the project itself that it should
interwork with systems and information
in many other fields, and so active
collaboration with other groups is
essential.   To produce an information
system isolating HEP from the rest
of the world would be counter-productive,
so the aim can be seen as furthering
a global web of information.\par 
The WWW team are all enthusiastic
that  information of all types should
be available as widely as possible.
\subsection{Collaboration}We encourage collaboration by academic
or commercial parties. There are
always many things to be done, ports
to be made to different environments,
new browsers to be written, and additional
data to be incorporated into the
"web". There have already been many
contributions in these terms, and
also with hardware support from manufacturers.\par 
If you may be interested in extending
the web or the software, please mail
or phone us.
\subsection{Code distribution}Code written at CERN  is covered
by the CERN copyright  except where
explicitly put into the Public Domain.
The basic WWW code is in the Public
Domain, the rest is covered by the
conditions of distribution . In practice
the interpretation of this in the
case of the W3 project is that the
programs are freely available to
academic bodies of CERN member states
and to the world-wide High-Energy
Physics community. To commercial
organizations who are not reselling
it, but are using it to participate
in global information exchange, 
the charge is generally waived in
order to cut administrative costs.
Code is of course shared freely with
all collaborators. Commercial organizations
wishing to sell software based on
W3 code should contact CERN.\par 
We are in the process of getting
agreement to release certain parts
of the WWW project code into the
Public Domain.\par 
Where CERN code is included in otherwise
public domain code, that CERN code
becomes also public domain.\par 
Code not originating at CERN is of
course covered by terms set by the
copyright holder involved.
\subsection{Protocols and Data Formats}The definition of protocols such
as HTTP and data formats such as
HTML are in the public domain and
may be freely used by anyone.
Tim BL







\subsection{WorldWideWeb CERN-distributed code}See the CERN copyright .  This is
the README file which you get when
you unwrap one of our tar files.
These files contain information about
hypertext, hypertext systems, and
the WorldWideWeb project. If you
have taken this with a .tar file,
you will have only a subset of the
files.\par 
THIS FILE IS A VERY ABRIDGED VERSION
OF THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE
WEB.   IF IN DOUBT, READ THE WEB
DIRECTLY. If you have not got ANY
browser installed yet, do this by
telnet to info.cern.ch (no username
or password).\par 
Files from info.cern.ch are also
mirrored on ftp.ripe.net.
\subsubsection{Archive Directory structure}Under /pub/www , besides this README
file, you'll find bin , src and doc
directories.  The main archives are
as follows:
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[bin/xxx/bbbb
] Executable binaries
of program bbbb for system xxx. Check
what's there before you bother compiling.
(Note HP700/8800 series is "snake")
\item[bin/next/WorldWideWeb\_v.vv.tar.Z
]
The Hypertext Browser/editor for
the NeXT $--$ binary.
\item[src/WWWLibrary\_v.vv.tar.Z
] The W3
Library. All source, and Makefiles
for selected systems.
\item[src/WWWLineMode\_v.vv.tar.Z
] The Line
mode browser - all source, and Makefiles
for selected systems. Requires the
Library .
\item[src/WWWDaemon\_v.vv.tar.Z
] The HTTP
daemon, and WWW-WAIS  gateway programs.
Source.  Requires the Library.
\item[src/WWWMailRobot\_v.vv.tar.Z
] The Mail
Robot.
\item[doc/WWWBook.tar.Z
] A snapshot of our
internal documentation - we prefer
you to access this on line $--$ see
warnings below.
\end{DL}

\subsubsection{Basic WWW software installation from
source}This applies to the line mode client
and the server.  Below, \$prod means
LineMode or Daemon depending on which
you are building.
\paragraph{Generated Directory structure}The tar files are all designed to
be unwrapped in the same (this) directory.
They create different parts of a
common directory tree under that
directory. There may be some duplication.
They also generate a few files in
this directory: README.*, Copyright.*,
and some installation instructions
(.txt).\par 
The directory structure is, for product
\$prod  and machine \$WWW\_MACH
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[WWW/\$prod/Implementation
] Source files
for a given product
\item[WWW/\$prod/Implementation/CommonMakefile
]
The machine-independent parts of
the Makefile for this product
\item[WWW/\$prod/\$WWW\_MACH/
] Area for compiling
for a given system
\item[WWW/All/\$WWW\_MACH/Makefile.include
]
The machine-dependent parts of the
makefile for any product
\item[WWW/All/Implementation/Makefile.product
]
A makefile which includes both parts
above and so can be used from any
product, any machine.
\end{DL}

\paragraph{Compilation on already supported
platforms}You must get the WWWLibrary tar file
as well as the products you want
and unwrap them all from the same
directory.\par 
You must define the environmant variable
WWW\_MACH to be the architecure of
your machine (sun4, decstation, rs6000,
sgi, snake, etc)\par 
In directory WWW, type BUILD.
\paragraph{Compilation on new platforms}If your machine is not on the list:
\begin{itemize}
\item Make up a new subdirectory of that
name under WWW/\$prod and WWW/All,
copying the contents of a basically
similar architecture's directory.
\item Check the  WWW/All/\$WWW\_MACH/Makefile.include
for suitable directory and flag definitions.
\item Check the file tcp.h for the system-specific
include file coordinates, etc.  
\item Send any changes you have to make
back to www-request@info.cern.ch
for inclusion into future releases.
\item Once you have this set up, type BUILD.
\end{itemize}
\subsubsection{NeXTStep Browser/Editor}The browser for the NeXT is those
files contained in the application
directory WWW/Next/Implementation/WorldWideWeb.app
and is compiled. When you install
the app, you may want to configure
the default page, WorldWideWeb.app/default.html.
These must point to some useful information!
You should keep it up to date with
pointers to info on your site and
elsewhere. If you use the CERN home
page note there is a link at the
bottom to the master copy on our
server.   You should set up the address
of your local news server with
\begin{verbatim}                      dwrite WorldWideWeb NewsHost  news

\end{verbatim}
replacing the last word with the
actual address of your news host.
See Installation instructions .
\subsubsection{Line Mode browser}Binaries of this for some systems
are available in /pub/www/bin/ .
The binaries can be picked up, set
executable, and run immediately.\par 
If there is no binary, see "Installation
from source" above.\par 
 (See Installation notes ).  Do the
same thing (in the same directory)
to the WWWLibrary\_v.cc.tar.Z file
to get the common library.\par 
You will have an ASCII printable
manual in the file WWW/LineMode/Defaults/line-mode-guide.txt
which you can print out at this stage.
This is a frozen copy of some of
the online documentation.\par 
Whe you install the browser, you
may configure a default page. This
is /usr/local/lib/WWW/default.html
for the line mode browser. This must
point to some useful information!
You should keep it up to date with
pointers to info on your site and
elsewhere. If you use the CERN home
page note there is a link at the
bottom to the master copy on our
server.\par 
Some basic documentation on the browser
is delivered with the home page in
the directory WWW/LineMode/Defaults.
A separate tar file of that directory
(WWWLineModeDefaults.tar.Z) is available
if you just want to update that.\par 
The rest of the documentation is
in hypertext, and so wil be readable
most easily with a browser. We suggest
that after installing the browser,
you browse through the basic documentation
so that you are aware of the options
and customisation possibilities for
example.
\subsubsection{Server}The server can be run very simply
under the internet  daemon, to export
a file directory tree as a browsable
hypertext tree.  Binaries are avilable
for some platofrms, otherwise follow
instructions above for compiling
and then go on to " Installing the
basic W3 server ".
\subsubsection{XMosaic}XMosaic is an X11/Motif  W3 browser.\par 
The sources and binaries are distributed
separately from FTP.NCSA.UIUC.EDU
, in  /Web/xmosaic .  Binaries are
available for some platforms.  If
you have to build from source, check
the README in the distribution.\par 
The binaries can be picked up, uncompressed,
set "executable" and run immediately.
\subsubsection{Viola browser for X11}Viola is an X11 application for reading
global hypertext.  If a binary is
available from your machine, in /pub/www/bin/.../viola*,
then take that and also the Viola
"apps" tar file which contains the
scripts you will need.\par 
To generate this from source, you
will need both the W3 library and
the Viola source files.  There is
an Imakefile with the viola source
directory. You will need to generate
the XPA and XPM libraries and the
W3 library befere you make viola
itself.
\subsubsection{Documentation}In the /pub/www/doc directory are
a number articles, preprints and
guides on the web. \par 
See the online WWW bibliography for
a list of these and other articles,
books, etc. and also the list of
WWW Manuals available in text and
postscript form.
\subsubsection{General}Your comments will of course be most
appreciated, on code, or information
on the web which is out of date or
misleading. If you write your own
hypertext and make it available by
anonymous ftp or using a server,
tell us and we'll put some pointers
to it in ours. Thus spreads the web...
Tim Berners-Lee\par WorldWideWeb project\par CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland\par Tel: +41 22 767 3755; Fax: +41 22
767 7155; email: timbl@info.cern.ch








\subsection{Copyright CERN 1990-1993}Except where specifically placed
in the public domain, the information
(of all forms) in these directories
is the intellectual property of the
European Laboratory for Particle
Physics (known as CERN). No guarantee
whatsoever is provided by CERN. No
liability whatsoever is accepted
for any loss or damage of any kind
resulting from any defect or inaccuracy
in this information or code.\par 
The conditions for public domain
and other access to the code are
defined in  distribution conditions
of WWW code\par 
Tim Berners-Lee\par 
CERN\par 
1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
Tel +41(22)767 3755, Fax +41(22)767
7155, Email: tbl@cernvax.cern.ch







\subsection{World-Wide Web Printed Manuals}These manuals are available by anonymmous
FTP from info.cern.ch. They all are
generated automatically from the
online hypertext, and so may read
a little strangely at times .  Also,
they are of course always out of
date compared with the online documents
which are continuously being updated.
To get them, follow the links or,
if you don't yet have www software,
your FTP session may look something
like:
\begin{verbatim}			ftp info.cern.ch
			> login: anonymous
			> password: your@mail.address
			> cd /pub/www/doc
			> ls
			> get line-mode-guide.txt
			> quit

\end{verbatim}
Each manual is available in Postscript
(filename suffix .ps),  plain ASCII
text (.txt) and sometimes TeX (.tex).
The plain text versions do not have
a table of contents.\par 
If you are reading this in hypertext,
you can pick up the plain text or
postscript by following links below.
The titles are linked to the hypertext
versions.
\paragraph{Line Mode Browser user guide}A non-hypertext version of the line
mode browser hypertext user guide
. About 13 pages.\par 
See the introductory page for a contents
overview.Filename: line-mode-guide.txt
( plain text ) or line-mode-guide.ps
( postscript )
\paragraph{The WWW Server Guide}The manual for information providers.
Instructions on how to install and
configure and if necessary debug
the basic W3 server.   Examples of
simple shell script servers.  Lists
of tools available to help construct
servers and generate hypertext. Descriptions
of how to make a server for an existing
database.  Lists of existing gateways
servers.\par 
Filename: www-server-guide.txt (
plain text ) or ww-server-guide.ps
( postscript )
\paragraph{The HTML Specification}A complete description of the Hypertext
Markup language generated by W3 servers.
Includes desription of each tag and
its significance, lists of special
characters, the SGML DTD for HTML,
and an explanation of the relationships
between HTML and SGML and MIME. About
28 pages.\par 
Filename: html-spec.txt ( plain text
), html-spec.ps ( postscript )
\paragraph{The HTTP Specification}A description of the protocol used
by new W3 clients and servers to
communicate.\par 
Filename: http-spec.txt ( plain text
) , http-spec.ps ( postscript )
\subsubsection{OUT OF PRINT}
\paragraph{The "W3 Book"}If you want technical details, we
recommend browsing the web, for the
latest versions of all our thoughts
we have had time to type in. If you
want to take it on the plane, then
we occasionally dump a part of the
hypertext onto paper. This is the
"World-Wide Web Book".   Some of
it is mere philosophical wonderins,
some of it is proposal, some is explanation.\par 
NO LONGER AVAILABLE IN PAPER FORM.\par 
See the introductory page for contents
overview.\par 
Around 75 pages.






\chapter{Frequently Asked Questions on W3}An FAQ list is really a cop-out from
managed information. You should be
able to find everything you want
to know by browsing from the WWW
project page, as everything should
be arranged in a logical way. Here
though are things which maybe didn't
fit into the structure, with pointers
to the answers which maybe did. Its
an experiment, started May 92. The
questioners are anonymous.
\begin{itemize}
\item I am just starting: how do I find
out more?
\item How does www keep track of the available
servers?
\item How does W3 compare with WAIS and
Gopher ?
\item How do I create my own server ?
\item Can I get W3 documents if I'm not
on the internet ?
\item How can I access WWW though a internet
firewall ?
\end{itemize}See also Nathan Torkington's FAQ
list posted every now and again to
comp.infosystems.www , in hypertext
form .,WWW Primer
Tim BL







\section{Getting Started}
\subsection{Question}So where can I find information about
W3? 
\subsection{Getting Started using telnet}All the information about W3 is on
ther web.  So you do you get started?
A number of ways.   You can browse
through all that information by just
telnetting to one of the addreses
below, or you can pick up information
using anonymous FTP. If  you want
to use telnet, try some of the following.
(Log in as www if asked for a user
name)
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[telnet info.cern.ch
] (or     telnet
128.141.201.74) The simplest line
mode browser. This server is in Geneva,
Switzerland.
\item[telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
] A full
screen browser  "Lynx" which requires
a vt100 terminal. Log in as www.
University of Kansas
\item[telnet www.njit.edu
] Log in as www.
A full-screen browser in New Jersey
Institute of Technology.  USA.
\item[telnet vms.huji.ac.il
] (or   telnet
128.139.4.3). A dual-language Hebrew/English
database, with links to the rest
of the world. The line mode browser,
plus extra features. Log in as www.
Hebrew Uiversity of Jerusalem, Israel.
\item[telnet sun.uakom.cs
] Slovakia.   Has
a slow link,  use from nearby.
\item[telnet fserv.kfki.hu
] Hungary.  Has
slow link, use from nearby. Login
is as www.
\item[telnet info.funet.fi
] (or    telnet
128.214.6.100)   (FINLAND)
\item[Cornel Law school
] (address?)
\end{DL}

\subsection{Using FTP}Alternatively, you can pick up some
information in plain text or postscript
form from the anonymous FTP archive
on info.cern.ch.  Just FTP to info.cern.ch
(or 128.141.201.74) and log in as
"anonymous" with for password your
mail address  user@host. \par 
Change directory (cd) to  pub/www/doc,
and see what there is (ls command).\par 
If you have an X-windows workstation,
pick up the binary (preferebly) or
else the source of  NCSA's Mosaic
for X  from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu, in
directory /Web/xmosaic.  Just uncompress
it, set it executable, and run it.\par 
See also:  the W3 bibliography ,
about W3 distributed code , using
FTP .
Tim BL





\section{How does www keep track of the available
servers?}
\subsection{Q}How does www keep track of the available
servers? How does a user know where
to go to get a specific piece of
information? According to the description
of the http protocol, when a user
wants to do a search, the corresponding
UDI specifies, among other things,
the server's address. How does the
user find out about the server's
address? Or from the server's perspective,
how does a server announce its existence?
\subsection{The resource discovery problem}
14 May 1992
This is what people seem to call
this problem in general.  \par 
As  a physical sever can serve many
different types of information from
different servers, we talk about
finding documents and indexes, as
that is what the user sees. To the
reader, the web is a continuum. When
a new server appears, it may serve
many databases of data from different
sources and on different subjects.
 The new data must be incorporated
into the web.  This means putting
links to data on the new server (especially
to a general overview document for
the server if there is one) from
existing documents which interested
readers might be reading, or putting
it into an index which people might
search.\par 
The person publishing the data must
go through the same process as the
person searching for it.  When (s)he
has found an overview page which
(s)he feels ought to refer to the
new data, (s)he can ask the author
of that  document (who ought to have
signed it with a link to his or her
mail address) to put in a link. 
There may be several links from different
documents: there is not one master
list.  Of course, some servers are
put up for internal use only, and
links are only made from local documents.
 I only find out about these servers
by word of mouth, but they exist.\par 
Currently, there are three parallel
trees in the web for finding data
starting from scratch. The most interesting
one is a classification by subject.
I've got an "Other subjects" link
from Cern's home page to a master
page of information by subject .
From that I have links to individual
servers of all kinds (W3, WAIS and
Gopher), and in cases where there
are a lot like physics and biology,
a link to a page about one specific
subject.  In this way you can browse
the web by subject like a library.
 I am looking for people in other
disciplines to take over the subtrees
for those disciplines as the load
gets heavier (I may have candidates
for some).  The tree tends to be
ought of date, and its authors rely
on feedback  to put in things which
are missing.\par 
The other trees are by organization
and by server type. The list by server
type is easy, because the people
responsible for each protocol keep
a list of the servers using it. That
is, there is a tree of gophers, and
there is an index of WAIS indexes.
There is the W3/WAIS/Archie server
for FTP sites.  This tree isn't so
useful unless you know what sort
of a server you are looking for,
but it tends to be more up-to-date
than the subject index. It also has
things in which aren't just about
subjects. The third tree was going
to be a geographic tree of organizations,
but that isn't at all up-to-date.\par 
By the way, it would be easy in principle
for a third party to run over these
trees and make indexes of what they
find.  Its just that noone has done
it as far as I know because there
isn't yet an indexer which runs over
the web directly.\par 
As you can see, the web is sufficiently
flexible to allow a number of ways
of finding infomation.  In the end,
I think a typical resource discovery
session will involve someone starting
on their "home" document, following
one to two links to an index, then
doing a search, and following several
links from what they have found.
In some cases, there will be more
than one index search involved, such
as at first for an organization,
and having found that, a search within
it for a person or document. We need
to keep this flexibility, as the
available information in diffferent
places has such different characteristics.\par 
In the long term, when there is a
really large mass of data out there,
with deep interconnections, then
there is some really exciting work
to be done on automatic algorithms
to make multi-level searches.
Tim BL\par 






\section{W3 vs WAIS and Gopher}
\subsection{Question}What's the difference betwen W3 and
WAIS? What's the difference between
W3 and Gopher? Why invent yet another
system? Which one should I use?
\subsection{The data model}W3 is comparable to both WAIS and
Gopher , in that it is a client-server
information system running over the
internet.  There is a difference
in the data models.  The W3 model
is that everything (document, menu,
index etc) is represented to the
user as a hypertext (hypermedia)
object.  There two navigation operations
are available to the user: to follow
a link or to send a query to a server.
Only certain documents are flagged
as having a search facility, and
not all documents have links, but
some documents have both.  That's
a pretty simple model, and results
in a pretty simple user interface.\par 
Two neat things fall out of this
model.  One is that it turns out
that almost all other information
systems can be represented in terms
of W3 documents.  A W3 user can interrogate
WAIS indexes ( example ) and Gopher
servers ( example ).  This comes
from the flexibility of the W3 model
to describe other structures.  A
WAIS database is a searchable document.
The hit-list returned by a WAIS server
(or any other query engine) is a
hypertext document with links to
the documents found. Gopher menus
(or any other hierarchical menu system,
including a file system) are represented
as lists of items linked to other
objects. The W3 system has an open
addressing scheme allowing links
to be made to any objects on W3,
WAIS, Gopher, FTP, NFS, or Network
News servers.\par 
Therefore, the Web is the SUPERSET
of the FTP, WAIS, Gopher and HTTP
spaces. \par 
This flexibility has allowed lots
of different kinds of data to be
put on-line by writing a simple script
to generate a hypertext "view" of
the database. \par 
The hypertext model, then, is flexible.
It is also powerful as a communications
medium.  To author a document in
hypertext is to communicate better.
It allows one to put in a link whenever
the reader might need background
information .  
\subsection{WAIS lacks links}You miss the links in WAIS in two
ways. One is when you are looking
for an index. You can't follow links
from an overview page to "browse"
through different indexes. You can
only use a master index (the directory
of sources) to find indexes.  The
other way is that when you have retrieved
something, whether part of the FORTRAN
manual or part of a mail discussion,
you get it in isolation. You can't
follow links from that document to
related documents.
\subsection{Gopher menus lack text}A Gopher menu is a dry list of items.
Each line has 80 characters in which
to describe an option. In practice,
to communicate with the reader, one
needs the full power of text formatting
in a number of styles. A plain list
turns out to be relatively infrequently
used when the author or the program
generating the document has a choice.
Note that the "Panda" project adds
some plain text to Gopher menus,
but this is only a small step toward
the flexible blending of links and
text which is hypertext.
\subsection{Group work}The second big difference is that
W3 is designed to include collaborative
authoring  (CSCW) so that groups
can share information, rather than
simply individuals disseminate it.
We only have a first stab at this
on the NeXT platform, as we were
overtaken by the web's success in
dissemination mode.  XMosaic is bringing
this further along.
\subsection{Deployment levels}The W3 software was not (in May 92)
as deeply deployed  as WAIS and Gopher
software.  This is basically because
it takes more time to write a hypertext
client than a menu or query client.
(Also, because the initial W3 instigators
are paid to work for the world of
High-Energy Physics primarily). Updating
this in June 93, we see W3's own
"http" protocol move ahead of the
WAIS protocol in the NSF Backbone
packet count statistics.  The number
of W3 servers is now similar to the
number of WAIS servers (around 100)
while smaller than the number of
Gopher servers (around 1000).\par 
The W3 world is growing very fast.
Between May 91 and May 93,  load
on CERN's W3 server doubled every
four months or less.   There is widespread
recognition that hypertext is essential
for the next generation. It is planned
to merge the W3 and Gopher systems,
and there is no reason (apart from
server simplicity and, perhaps, response
time ... both strong issues in the
market) why both of these systems
could not use the WAIS protocol when
it settles down. However these distinctions
are largely practical details for
the web, which in using a number
of protocols, allows technology to
advance without anyone having to
suddenly change everything.
\subsection{The Choice}Bear in mind:
\begin{itemize}
\item A W3 client can read data from any
other system.
\item If you run a W3 server you can upgrade
certain parts of the documentation
to hypertext later.
\item Hypertext is neat for representing
existing data easily.  This you can
only try for yourself.
\end{itemize}So install W3 clients, and W3 servers.
If you want to install a Gopher or
WAIS server, fine: the W3 clients
will access it.  If you install a
WAIS server, then you could install
the W3-WAIS gateway locally to save
bandwidth.
Tim BL






\section{How to create a W3 server}
\section{(Warning: page under construction)}
\subsection{Questions}What's the difference between a server
and a gateway ? Which one do I need
? What's the easiest way to create
a server ? How do I customize the
distributed software to my needs
? How can I write an index server
?
\subsection{Basics}Since this FAQ came up, a lot more
documentation about starting servers
has come onto the web, so it might
pay you to browse a bit more. There
are so many ways, that it might seem
complicated, but in fact most of
the methods are very easy.\par 
The server that we distribute as
WWWDaemon is in two parts: a common
HTDaemon program taking care of the
communications, and a variable HTRetrieve
function called by HTDaemon with
the significant part of the address
(i.e. after host) split as argument
and keywords (look at the code).
The default HTRetrieve function,
located in HTRetrieve.c, in fact
runs the www common code library
functions (yes, the same fucntions
as in a client) to retrieve the information
\subsection{Index server}An index server allows searches as
well as retrieval. To make an index
server, you need an HTRetrieve that
knows how to query a database, or
otherwise find information, from
keywords supplied after the '?' in
the address. It can be as simple
as a 'grep' in a series of files.\par 
 We provide 3 example index servers
built this way: VMSHelpGate, which
gives access to VMS help, FindGate
which gives access to a mainframe
search engine called XFind, and WAISGate,
which speaks the WAIS protocol to
contact their search engines. You
can read about all this in the Web...\par 
Oh yes,  the ISINDEX tag should be
returned by the server to notify
the client that it accepts searches.\par 
Page under construction.
Tim BL\par 





\section{No internet connection}You are not on the internet?  You
know you aren't because none of the
useual commands are available to
you like telnet and ftp. Don't worry:
all is not lost. There are two possibilities.
\subsection{If you are on DECnet}If you are on a DECnet, then you
can use DECnet versions of the W3
software. You can get infromation
from outside the DECnet you are on
so long as somebody somewheer runs
a gateway into the internet ona a
machine which is connected to both.
\subsection{By mail}If you have electronic mail, then
it possible (though slow!) to get
W3 information by mail. try sending
a mail to listserv@info.cern.ch with
a line in it saying just\par 
HELP\par 
to get back instructions .  Your
mail system must have a mail gataeway
onto internet mail, but hat is quite
likely.  You might have to take the
internet address above and ask your
friendly system manager how to convert
it into the equivalent mail address
on the system you are using. See
more about the robot .
Tim BL







\section{Getting Through Fire Walls}
\subsection{Question}My company (organisation, etc) has
an internal internet but general
access to the external internet is
not allowed.  How can I run a www
client to access offf-site things?
\subsection{TCP tunneling through firewalls}There are two ways.  If you are simply
a user with no sympathy from the
guys running the gateway, then you
have to use an existing gateway.
Typically, there will be a telnet
gateway to which you can telnet which
then allows you to ask politely to
be connected to a given remote machine.\par 
It is possible to change way that
www clients to a TCP connect to do
all of this for every connection.
The code in in HTTP.c and HTTCP.c
in the libwww library.  This has
been done successfully at for example
Xerox PARC ands other places.
\subsection{Running a WWW Gateway}You can do it this way if you can
run a new gateway on the firewall
machine.   You will need to persuade
your management that this is safe
and necessary.  (Try showing them
a good www client and then see what
they say! )\par 
WWW clients can be set to redirect
requests to a gateway using
\begin{verbatim}		setenv WWW_http_GATEWAY  http://gw.here.com/
		setenv WWW_wais_GATEWAY  http://gw.here.com/
		setenv WWW_gopher_GATEWAY http://gw.here.com/

\end{verbatim}
setting it separately for each type
of URL. They then use HTTP protocol
to go to the gateway, which returns
whatever document/search it was they
wanted. See also: running a WWW gateway.\par 
The client can in fact run with a
rule file instead of the environment
variables, which allows more complicated
selections to be set up.\par 
The CERN WWW server (httpd) will
run as a gateway just by being configured
correctly. The rule file needs lines
like for example
\begin{verbatim}		pass	http:*
		pass	wais:*
		pass	gopher:*
		fail	news:alt.*
		pass	news:*

\end{verbatim}
The gateway can at the same time
be a server for files, by putting
in lines like
\begin{verbatim}		pass	http://gw.here.com/*	file:/pub/*
		pass	/*			file:/pub/*

\end{verbatim}
There are lots of alternatives. Clearly
you can be quite specific about what
you do and do not want to allow through.
 But censorship may only get you
into trouble with your users.
Tim BL






\chapter{How can I help?}There are lots of ways you can help
if you are interested in seeing the
web grow and be even more useful...
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Put up some data
] There are many ways
of doing this. The web needs both
raw data $--$ fresh hypertext or old
plain text files, or smart servers
giving views of existing databases.
See more details , etiquette , style
guide.
\item[Suggest someone else does
] Maybe you
know a system or some information
which you would like to see on the
web. Suggest to the person involved
that they put up a W3 server.
\item[Manage a subject area
] If you know
something of what's going on in a
particular field, organization or
country, would you like to keep up-to-date
an overview of online data?
\item[Write some software
] We have a big
list of things to be done. Help yourself
$--$ all contributions gatefully received!
see the list .
\item[Send us suggestions
] We love to get
mail... www-bug@info.cern.ch
\item[Tell your friends
] Install/get installed
the client software on your site.
Quote things by their W3 address
to allow w3 users to pick them straight
up.
\end{DL}

Tim BL






\section{W3 developments}Thisis a sort of sign-up sheet for
W3-related devlopments.\par 
If you have a moment, take your pick!
Some of these would make good projects,
or would be a way your organization
could contribute to the building
of the web.   This list is only a
few ideas $--$ more are welcome!\par 
If you are interested in a particular
area, mail www-request@info.cern.ch
to have your name put against this
list, with a statement of whether
your interest. \par 
There are also special lists of little
things to do for each existing project
such as the line mode browser , the
NeXT browser , the common library
, and the server .
\subsection{Client side}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[More clients
] Clients exist for many
platforms, but not all. Editors only
exist on the NeXT, but will be really
useful for sourcing info and group
work. (Group editor?)
\item[Search engines
] Now the web of data
and indexes exists, some really smart
intelligent algorithms ("knowbots?")
could run on it.  Recursive index
and link tracing, Just think...
\item[Text from hypertext
] We need a quick
way to print a book from the web.
(A simple method using TeX exists)
\item[Slide show
] Timed sequences of presentations.
Scripting language for Multimedia
stuff. References: Apple Quicktime,
IBM/PC's AVI, HyTime.   Make a new
MIME content type for such a 4-D
montage of other documents. Interest:
jcasey@maths.tcd.ie Aug 93.
\end{DL}

\subsection{Server side}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Server upgrade
] Easier to install,
port.  Run shell scripts embedded
in the directory for virtual documents
and searches.  This is being tackled:
improvements to the CERN server,
the NCSA server by Rob McCool, the
Mac server, and CNIDR are tackling
a Windows/NT (MSDOS?) server.  Additional
feature patches welcomed!
\item[More Servers
] The list of information
we have thought of or been pointed
to which could be put into the web.
\item[WAIS integration
] WAIS protocol extensions
to allow hypertext; HTML data type,
docids to be conforming UDIs. WAIS
has been integrated into the client
now, using freeWAIS code. Maybe that
code could all be simplified/speeded
up?   Z39.50 latest version added?
\item[Relational Database Gateway
] Flexible
tools for generating hypertext views
of relational databases. 
\item[FTP server distribution
] Persuade
the newer FTP server implementations
to include a HTTP server in the distributed
code, to allow more efficient access
\end{DL}

\subsection{Other software}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Transport level Gateways
] JANET and
DECnet for example. Real need.
\item[HTTP enhancements
] Format conversion
(done), authorization  (Ari working
on it) , better logging information
for statistics.
\item[Mail manager
] A hypertext view of
a mail archive with lists of messages
by author, topic, with links between
messages. A friendly face on a mail
archive would be a great project
management tool.
\item[HTTP enhancements
] Format conversion,
authorization, better logging information
for statistics.
\item[Form processing
] If you can edit hypertext,
you edit a hypertext form and return
it.   To be able to submit a form
back to the server would allow  special
search patterns, administrative processing,
electronic voting, ...
\item[Graphic overview
] Display the web
from any document in a graphical
form.
\item[HyperGraphics
] Why only text?  Perhaps
a generic format for putting an overlay
of sensitive areas over any image
(or video) format. See Tony Sander's
ISMAP work.
\item[Phone-line protocol
] There is a need
for a point-point low bandwidth protocol
designed for beating the heck out
of a phone line. The protocol will
keep the phone line occpied in a
very inteligent way with look-ahead
fetches of related documents and
lists or parts of them so that a
home user with a big disk can explore
with optimised ease when he is paying
by the minute. 
\item[MOO Integration
] WWW meets MOO, IRC,
etc.  MOO users explore the web,
WWW users find MOO rooms. See MOOs
on the web .
\end{DL}

\subsection{Documentation}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Tutorials
] Hypertext leading a new
or prospective user through W3.
\item[Canned demos
] A hypertext path through
some good represenattive places to
visit. Maybe a script to make a timed
presentation (with sound?).
\item[ Videos
] Would save us giving so many
talks!
\item[Policy documents
] Statements on NIR:
collect from institutes, provide
background for organizations making
NIR policy decisions.
\end{DL}

Tim BL







\section{Information Provider}There are many ways of making your
new or existing data available on
the "web" . The best method depends
on what sort of data you have. (If
you have any questions, mail the
www team at www-bug@info.cern.ch.).
See also: Web etiquette . How can
I help ?
\subsection{Running a server}You can set up a basic W3 server
and configure it to serve data in
certain directory trees.  \par 
There are several servers available:
pick one suitable forthe platform
on which you wish to run.\par 
If you like, to save the trouble
of writing hypertext, you can use
the -dy option to allow readers to
browse through the directory structure:
 directories will appear as hypertext
documents. Any README files can (optionally)
be automatically included at the
top or bottom of the directory listsings.
This is the simplest way of serving
data.  See more about the HTTP server
.\par 
If you have some plain text files
then you can easily write, or generate
using a script,  a small hypertext
file which points to them.  To make
them accessible you can use either
anonymous FTP , or the HTTP daemon
.  
\subsection{Editing hypertext}You can use our prototype hypertext
editor to create a web of hypertext,
linking it to existing files. This
is not YET available for X11 workstations
$--$ you need a NeXT. This is a fast
way of making online documentation,
as well as performing the hyper-librarian
job of making sure all your information
can be found.\par 
If you don't yet have a editor for
directly editing a document as you
see it ("wysiwyg"), then you can
still edit the HTML markup with an
ordinary text editor. This requires
a knowledge of the HTML language
.\par 
Whatever way you do it, you might
like to read a Style Guide for online
hypertext.
\subsection{Indexing your files}If you want to generate a full-text
index, then you could use the public
domain WAIS software - your data
will then be accessible (as plain
text, not hypertext) through the
WAIS gateway .
\subsection{You have an existing information
base}If you have a maintained base of
information, don't rush into changing
the way you manage it.  A "gateway"
W3 server can run on top of your
existing system, making the information
in it available to the world. This
is how it works:
\begin{itemize}
\item Menus map onto sets of hypertext
links
\item Different search options map onto
different "index" document addresses
(even if they use the same index
underneath in your system).
\item Procedures used by those who contribute
and manage information stay unaltered.
\end{itemize}An W3 server is such a simple thing
that a simple shell script will often
suffice. This is great for bits of
information available locally through
other programs, which you would like
to publish. See more details on writing
servers using shell scripts under
unix , or in DCL under VMS .\par 
If your database is WAIS,  VMS/HELP,
XFIND, or Hyper-G, a gateway exists
already. These gateway servers did
not take long to write. You can pick
up a skeleton server in C from our
distribution . \par 
For more information, see:
\begin{itemize}
\item W3 Server software
\item A case study of one system .
\item Making a W3 server for existing data
.
\item Allowing multiple selections
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Setting up a telnet service}A telnet service allows people to
telnet to your machine and get information
from the web.  You can set things
up so that the moment they telnet
to your server, they are in a www
browser. See:
\begin{itemize}
\item How to set up a telnet server 
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Professional Help}If you would like advice on methods
designing information systems, and
setting up clients and customized
servers,  there are professional
services who will be pleased to discuss
your situation.  (See list )
Tim BL






\section{Etiquette}There are a few conventions which
will make for a more useable, less
confusing, web.   As a server administrator
you should make sure this applies
to your data.   The Style Guide for
Online Hypertext gives more ideas
for all information providers.
\begin{itemize}
\item Signing your work $--$ especially the
root page.
\item Giving its status
\end{itemize}Your server needs these things set
up once per server:
\subsection{A welcome page for outsiders}You don't have to have any particular
structure to the data you publish:
you can let it evolve as you think
best. However, it is neat to have
a document on each host which others
can use to get a quick idea (with
pointers) of what information is
available there.  You should put
a "pass" line into your daemon rule
file to map the document name "/"
onto such a document.  As well as
a summary of what is available at
your host, pointers to related hosts
are a good idea. 
\subsection{An alias for your server}If you have a serious server then
it may last longer than the machine
on which it runs.  Ask your internet
domain name manager to make an alias
for it so that you can refer to it,
instead of as "mysun12.dom.edu" as
"info.dom.edu" for example, or  "www.dom.edu".
This will mean that when you change
machines, you move the alias, and
people's links to your data will
still work.
\subsection{An alias for yourself}You should make a mail alias "webmaster"
on the server machine so that people
who have problems with your server
can mail you about it easily.   This
is similar to the "postmaster" alias
for people who have mail problems
with your machine.
Tim BL





\section{Using Anonymous FTP}Anonymous FTP access means  using
the FTP protocol with username "anonymous"
and a password which is the reader's
mail address. It is a conventional
way of publishing material on the
internet.\par 
 It allows anyone on the internet
(or gatewayed network) to access
a SUBSET of your files. On a unix
system, this involves setting up
a user "ftp" in whse home directory
the public files will be. An external
user sees a file system whose root
is that home directory. Look at the
man page for ftpd on your system.
\par 
Normally, the public files are kept
in /pub or a subdirectory of that.\par 
Any file with which is accesible
using anonymous ftp is accesible
as a W3 document with address
\begin{verbatim}			file://node.domain/path/path/path

\end{verbatim}
for (imaginary) example
\begin{verbatim}			file://info.cern.ch/pub/README.txt
\end{verbatim}
Tim BL






\chapter{Technical details}(See also: W3 project )
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[How to provide data
] How can I make
my own data available on the web?
\item[Developments
] Things to be done, thing
speople are doing.
\end{DL}

\section{Specs:}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[The HTTP protocol
]WWW's own protocol.
 WWW clients all speak many other
protocols.
\item[
]
\item[HTML format
] A description of the
markup language used for some documents
and for search hit-lists.
\item[Access Authorization
] Document protection
in W3.
\item[Addressing (URLs)
] The syntax of W3
document addresses.
\end{DL}

\section{Discussion:}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Design Issues
] Discussions of decisions
to be made when designing or selecting
a hypertext/IR system. See also related
products .
\item[Working notes
] Work in progress at
the drawing board, notes of meetings
etc.  Additions welcome: send URLs
\item[News
] Some internet/usenet newsgroups
of possible interest to the WorldWideWeb
project.
\end{DL}

\section{Other:}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Coding standards
] A basic style guide
for W3 code contributors. If you
write code, read this!
\item[Using CVS in WWW
] A guide to setting
up the code management system for
for those hacking the code.
\item[Test data
] A  collection of data for
testing
\end{DL}







\chapter{Design Issues}This lists decisions to be made in
the design or selection of a hypermedia
information system. It assumes familiarity
with   the concept of hypertext.
A summary of the uses of hypertext
systems is followed by a list of
features which may or may not be
available.  Some of the points appear
in the Comms ACM July 88 articles
on various hypertext systems.  Some
points were discussed also at ECHT90
. Tentative answers to some design
decisions from the CERN perspective
are included.\par 
Here are the criteria and features
to be considered:
\begin{itemize}
\item Intended uses of the system.
\item Availability on which platforms?
\item Navigational techniques and tools:
browsing, indexing, maps, resource
discovery, etc
\item Keeping track of previous versions
of nodes and their relationships
\item Multiuser access:  protection, editing
and locking, annotation.
\item Notifying readers of new material
available
\item The topology of the web of links
\item The types of links which can express
different relationships between nodes
\end{itemize}These are the three important issues
which require agreement betwen systems
which can work together
\begin{itemize}
\item Naming and Addressing of documents
\item Protocols
\item The format in which node content
is stored and transferred
\item Implementation and optimisation -
Caching , smart browsers, knowbots
etc., format conversion , gateways.
\end{itemize}


\section{Intended Uses}Here are some of the many areas in which hypertext is used. Each area
has its specific requirements in the way of features required. 
\begin{itemize}
\item General reference data - encyclopaedia, etc.
\item Completely centralized publishing - online help, documentation, tutorial
etc
\item More or less centralized dissemination of news which has a limited
life
\item Collaborative authoring 
\item Collaborative design of something other than the hypertext itself
\item Personal notebook
\end{itemize}The CERN requirement has a mixture of many of these uses, except that
there is not a requirement for distribution of fixed hypertext on
hard media such as optical disk. Evidently, the system will have to
be networked, though databases may start life at least as personal
notebooks.\par 
For looking up data bases, the user should be able to refer to already
prepared complex queries by simple UDIs. A moe advanced user should
also be able to prepare a complex query himself, store it (interpreted
language!) in his local filing space, and use it through a simple
UDI.\par 
\lbrack The (paper) document "HyperText and CERN" describes the problem to
be solved at CERN, and the requirements of a system which solves them.


\section{Availability on various platforms}The system is to be available (at CERN) on many sorts of machine,
but priorities must be decided.  A list  comprises:
\begin{itemize}
\item A unix or VMS workstation with X-windows
\item An 80 character terminal attached to a unix or VMS machine, or an
MSDOS PC
\item An 80 character terminal attached to an IBM mainframe running  VM/CMS
\item A Macintosh
\item A unix workstation with NextStep
\item An MS-DOS/Windows PC
\end{itemize}The order above does not imply a priority. It may be that the implementation
on one system will lead more easily to an implementation on one of
the others, and this would in practice change the order of porting.
The requirement for 80 column terminals to be useable (emphasized
by M. Goossens) follows from low budgets of many of our users.\par 
The order of implementation of special browsers at CERN is a function





\section{Navigational Techniques and Tools}
TBL 
There are a number of ways of accessing
the data one is looking for. Navigational
access (i.e., following links) is
the essence of hypertext, but this
can be enhanced with a number of
facilities to make life more efficient
and less confusing.
\subsection{Defined structure}It is sometimes nice for a reader
to be able to reference a document
structure built specifically to enhance
his understanding, by the document
author. This is especially important
when the structure is part of the
information the author wishes to
convery.\par 
See a separate discussion of this
point .
\subsection{Graphic Overview}A Graphic overview  is useful and
could be built automatically. Should
it be made by the author, server,
browser or an independent daemon?\par 
Can one provide an overview with
less granularity than the basic web
by grouping nodes in some way?  The
user could select from link types
used to imply the tree structure.
(JFG)\par 
I think this depends on how long
it will take. It might be interesting
to experiment with daemons which
will independently make and update
maps of the web. This is not essential
for a first pilot model.
\subsection{History mechanism}This allows users to retrace their
steps. Typical functions provided
can be interpreted in a hypertext
web as follows:
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Home
] Go to initial node
\item[Back
] Go to the node visited before
this one in chronological order.
Modify the history to remove the
current node.
\item[Next
] When the current node is one
of several nodes linked to the ªbackº
node, go to the next of those nodes.
Leave the ªBackº node unchanged.
Modify the history to remove the
current node and replace it with
the "next" (new current) node.
\item[Previous
] When the current node is
one of several nodes linked to the
ªbackº node, go to the preceding
one of those nodes.
\end{DL}
In many hypertext systems, a tree
structure is forcibly imposed on
the data, and these functions are
interpreted only with respect to
the links in the tree. However, the
reader as he browses defines a tree,
and it may be more relevant to him
to use that tree as a basis for these
functions. I would therefore suggest
that an explicit tree structure not
be enforced. \par 
(If a default tree is needed by the
system for some reason, then we can
always use the creation order: when
a node is created it is always created
with a link to an existing node.
Such links, whatever their type,
may be used to define a tree. If
they are deleted, an alternative
link must be chosen to become a tree
link.) \par 
If authors want to write a tree structure
into their documents, then the words
"after", "before" and "above" could
be used to mean a static structure.
\subsection{Intelligent navigation}See A. Secret's discussion of intelligently
navigation techniques .
\subsection{Index}An Index helps new readers of a large
database quickly find an obscure
node. Keyword schemes I include in
the general topic of indexes. The
index must, like a graphic overview,
be built either by the author, or
automatically by one of the server,
browser, or a daemon .   The index
entries may be taken from the titles,
a keyword list, or the node content
or a combination of these. Note that
keywords, if they are specifically
created rather than random words,
map onto hypertext ªconceptº nodes,
or nodes of special type ªkeywordº.
It is interesting to establish an
identity relationship between keywords
in two different databases $--$ this
may lead a searcher from one database
into another.\par 
Index schemes are important  but
indexes or keywords should look like
normal hypertext nodes.  The particular
special operation one can do with
a good keyword index system which
one can't do with a normal hypertext
system is to do a fast search on
multiple keywords. This must to be
provided as an extension to the hypertext
navigation scheme. However, it is
in fact analogous to a trace starting
with more than one node, which is
a valid hypertext tracing operation.
The difference is that the tracing
would normally be done by a browser,
but the indexed search done by the
server.\par 
When many nodes in a web represent
different indexes, then a query search
can chain between them (See " Web
of indexes "). Nat Torington's musings
.\par 
See also: HyperText and Information
Retrieval
\subsection{Node Names}These allow faster access if one
knows the name. They allow people
to give references to hypertext nodes
in other documents, over the telephone,
etc. This is very useful. However,
in Notecards, where the naming of
nodes was enforced, it was found
that thinking up names for nodes
was a bore for users. KMS thought
that being able to jump to a named
node was important. The node name
allows a command line interface to
be used to add new nodes.\par 
 I think that naming a node should
be optional: perhaps by default the
system could provide a number which
can be used instead of a name.The
system should certainly support the
naming of nodes, and access by name.
\subsection{Menu of links}Regular linkwise navigation may be
done with ªhotspotsº (highlighted
anchors) or may be done with a menu.
It may be useful to have a menu of
all the links from a given node as
an alternative way of navigating.
Enquire, for example, offers a menu
of references as the only way of
navigating.


\subsection{Web of Indexes}In WWW , an index is a document like any other. An index may be built
to cover a certain domain of information. For example, at CERN there
is a CERN computer center document index . There is a separate functional
telephone book index . Indexes may be built by the original information
provider, or by a third party as a value-added service.\par 
Indexes  may point to other indexes.  An index search on one index
may turn up another index in the result hit list.  In this case, the
following algorithm seems appropriate.
\subsubsection{Index context}Most index searches nowadays, though some look like intelligent semantically
aware searches, are basically associative keyword searches.  That
is, a document matches a search if there is a large correlation (with
or without boolean operations) between the set of words it or its
abstract contains and the set of words specified in the search. Let
us consider extending these searches to linked indexes.\par 
Each index has a certain context. This may be represented by a set
of keywords which may be considered to apply implicitly to everything
indexed. For example,  in the CERN computer center documentation index,
one may imagine that everything in it will be considered as pertaining
to the CERN computer center. We might represent the context by the
keyword list "CERN computer center documentation physics support".
\subsubsection{Context narrowing}Suppose we search a general physics index with the keywords "CERN
NEWSLETTER".  That index may contain an entry with keyword "CERN"
pointing to the CERN index.  Therefore, a search on the first index
will turn up the CERN index. We should then search the CERN index,
but looking only for the keyword "NEWSLETTER". The keyword "CERN"
is discarded, as it is assumed by the new context.  In this simple
model, we can assume that the contextwords could be used directly
as the keywords for the index itself.\par 
A simple algorithm, then, would be for the server to discard from
a search list any keywords matching the index's context $--$ but is
this really what we want to do?  Perhaps those keywords have a more
refined meaning within the context. For example, if I am looking for
documents about document storage schemes at CERN, I might search the
index with the keyword "documents".  I don't want this to be discarded
because it is in the context: I am looking for documents about documents.
It is understood that we are already within the context of computer
center documentation, so to ask about documentation in this context
implies more than that I am looking for a document.\par 
A more refined approach would therefore be to strip from the search
those keywords which were used in order to find the index. The keyword
list for the entry of one index within anotherthen reflects the change
in context. 
\subsubsection{Context Broadening}We have discussed here only a narrowing of context, not a broadening.
One can imagine also a reference to a broader context index. In this
case, perhaps one should add to the search some keywords which come
from the original context but were not expressed.  This would be dangerous,
and people would not like it as they often feel that they are expressing
their request in absolute terms even when they are not. Also, they
may have been trying to escape from too restricing a context.\par 
One should also consider a search which traces hypertext links as
well as using indexes.\par 
See also: Navigational techniques ,  Hypertext and IR , \par 
 
Tim BL


\section{Tracing Links}A form of search in a hypertext base involves tracing the links between
given nodes. For example, to find a module suitable for connecting
a decstation to SCSI, one might try finding paths between a document
on decstations and a document on SCSI. This is similar to relevance
feedback in index searching.\par 
Tracing is made more powerful by using typed links. In that case,
one could perform semantic searches for all document written by people
who were part of the same organisation as the author of this one,
for example. This can use node typing as well. \par 
When using link tracing,  documents take over from keywords.\par 
See Scott Preece's vision.\par 

Tim BL





\subsection{Intelligent Navigation}
\subsubsection{Rating documents}
We could take into account:

\paragraph{The author's view}
The author could
rate the interest of his documents
(optional).
\paragraph{Most looked at}
Each time a document
is looked at, it could increment
a "popularity" value, otherwise decreasing
as time goes by, e.g. 


\begin{verbatim}                pop = exp(-alpha*(t - tp)),

\end{verbatim}


tp being equal to ln(pop)/alpha +
t\_old, t\_old being the last time
someone looked at the file or through
the link, and t the current time.
\paragraph{The reader's view}
Any reader might
rate the interest of the document,
like "boring" or "interesting" (optional).\par 
The reader should be allowed at any
time to select the weight of each
rating, with a default value that
he could set in a default file.\par 
The best-rated link, as well as any
link over a default interest value
(e.g. the average value for the whole
text, or a constant), should be colored
in a special way.
\subsubsection{Search in the Web where no index
is provided}The problem dealt with here is: I
am in an html file, I know what I
am looking for, I know keywords for
it, and I want to see if there is
anything about it available FROM
the current file through its links.
\paragraph{Where to search ?}A breadth-first traversal searching
seems to be the only way, if we don't
want our grand-children to get the
answer for us...\par 
The search might detect if a file
has already been looked through,
and save the results for it.\par 
For best results, after a study of
each link of a given file, the search
should study  the links of the best-rated
file, and then the links of the next
best-rated file so far, wherever
it is.
\paragraph{How to rate the interest of a file
?}We could take into account:
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[The text
] How many times the keywords
are used in the text.
\item[The titles
] Each time one of the keywords
is used in a title, this shall increase
very much the interest of a given
file.
\item[Its own links
] The file should be
given some feedback about the interest
rates of its own linked files, which
might have themselves been corrected
if their own linked files show sufficient
interest, and so on.
\item[General interest
] general information
such as quoted above would also be
used: the author's rating, the readers'
average rating, the number of readers
having looked through it per unit
of time ... 
\end{DL}

\paragraph{How long ?}This is of course the most important.
Given an infinite time, a search
can be quite accurate, but will be
very inefficient for the reader.\par 
There are many ways to stop the search:
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[File found
] A file that seems enough
related to the keywords is found,
and the reader wants to get right
down to it. The reader would have
to define the limit between "enough
related" and "not enough related"
somehow, or use a default value.
\item[Depth reached
] The reader could set
a depth as a limit (e.g. the search
should not follow more than three
consecutive links). 
\item[Time over
] The reader could  set a
maximum time for search, whatever
other limitations he may use. He
should also be allowed to stop the
search at any time and get the best
result so far. 
\end{DL}

\paragraph{Then what ?}Once the search is over, the reader
could have two choices:
\begin{itemize}
\item To get the best-rated file, and then
by decreasing interest the others.
The best-rated file isn't necessarily
directly linked to the reader's current
file current file.  
\item To get the best-rated path, which
means that the best link he should
use would be highlighted in some
way at each stage.
\end{itemize}The reader should have the possibility
to keep searching, while starting
to read the documents found.\par 
We now see better the difference
between his two choices:\par 
When he only wants the best-rated
files, the reader will have access
to files that won't be much related
one to each other. When he takes
the best-rated path, the user will
follow links that have been created
by a human being in an order that
we may suppose to be logical.\par 
When the reader wants some detail
on a well-known field, he could take
the first search method; when he
needs a somewhat more logical information
on an unknown field, he could take
the second search method. 
\subsubsection{Increased Speed}Depending on its own possibilities,
the client could dedicate part of
its memory to guess what file(s)
might be asked next by the reader,
and memorize it/them while the reader
would be reading its document. This
should depend upon what amount of
memory is available for it, what
size the documents are, how difficult
is the guess, how blocked is the
network... \par 
The smartest might be to ask for
a transfer of the first page only,
so that the rest of the file could
be transferred while the reader would
read the beginning of it.
AS







\begin{verbatim}Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1993 11:20:37 -0800
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
From: kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)

\end{verbatim}

\subsection{Link To Living}



\subsubsection{The document is frozen}
\begin{verbatim}For "frozen text documents" it might be wise to ignore white space, line
delimiters, and other control characters since the same document (a mail
message or news article) may appear to  be the same on different platforms
(Unix, Mac, DOS/Windows), but different line endings will be used, tabs
could be converted to spaces, etc. so it might be "safer" to refer to
character offsets that ignore white space. This would still allow a link to
a particular word, sentence, paragraph, etc.

On the other hand, link references to frozen documents could be made such
as "word 2 to 4 of sentence 5 of paragraph six" which would be the same on
all platforms if the terms "word", "line", "sentence", and "paragraph" are
defined. Apple uses this model in their text object model today. Many
modern scripting environments: AppleScript, HyperCard, ToolBook, MetaCard,
etc. also support this type of referencing.

Finally, references might be made to a word(s) or phrase(s) contained in a
document, so that the actual physical location of the link isn't determined
until the document is retrieved. Under this scenario, a browser also needs
to be able to find the next occurance within the document so that the user
sees all references, not just the first. A link reference by search
"phrase" works for formatted documents as well as straight text, so the
search method will work for Microsoft Word, RTF, WordPerfect, FrameMaker,
TeX, plain text, etc. versions of the same raw information, the search just
ignores formatting information. It doesn't matter if the document changes,
since no exact location offset references are made; the worst case is that
the search phrase is removed from the document so that the link is
effectively gone. An example of this kind of lookup is done by the On
Location software for the Macintosh; it maintains an index of all text on a
drive, but the index refers only to the document, not an exact location
within a document. On Location allows you to search for text "as is" as
well as the root of a word, so a link to "link" would match "links" or
"linking" if you wanted. I think this kind of link would fit in well with
the HTML+ specification.

I like the last approach, since it appears to work better with frozen
documents as well as documents with different versions. By referencing a
lookup word, phrase, etc. a browser or server can easily make a index of a
document as well as look for other documents that might be applicable. This
is one of those rare cases where the solution works well for the user and
the machine.

\end{verbatim}

ka







\subsection{MOOs and WWW}Who's interested in getting MOOs
and MUDDs into the web and vice-versa?
Here are a few pointers. Laso see
\begin{itemize}
\item MOOs on the web
\end{itemize}
\subsubsection{marcus@x4u.desy.de (Marcus Speh)}Hi,\par 
do you know anyone who's working
on a MOO-WWW? Amy Bruckman from MIT
told me maybe Joe Wang would, but
 I couldnt reach him $--$ I thought
this would be an interesting  possibility
$--$ I am just about to enter the MediaMOO
at MIT.
\subsubsection{Tim:}Larry Masinter.parc@xerox.com is
interested in that sort of area,
and has made a Gopher object within
a MOO.  
\subsubsection{Later, Marcus:}things have developed faster than
this...in the meantime, I have entered
the board of Usenet University  and
work with Joseph. Also, there is
a WWW prototype object at MediaMOO,
and we're thinking about hooking
tkWWW into it. If anyone is interested:
there is a mailing list discussing
these things (technology for a UU
MOO): contact creilly@maths.tcd.ie
to be included.



\section{Versioning}Definition: The storage and management of previous copies of a piece
of information, for security, diagnostics, and interest.\par 
Do you want version control?\par 
Can you reference a version only?\par 
If you refer to a particular place in a node, how does one follow
it in a new version, if that place ceases to exist?\par 
(ªPeter Aiken is the expert in this areaº - Tim Oren, Apple)\par 
Yes, at CERN we will want versioning. Very often one wants to correct
a news item, even one of limited life, without reissuing it. This
is a problem with VAX/NOTES for example. I would suggest that the
text for the current version is stored, and separately those modifications
necessary to backtrack to previous versions. I would expect previous
versions to be regenerated only on the fly, as needed. (Apparaently
SCCS stores the original file and the differences. This system does
allow you to ditsribute the differences when updating copies.)\par 
If full differences (deltas) are kept, the first version is just the
first delta from a null document. The latest version is not available
without regenerating it from all the deltas.  For speed, it is obviously
useful to keep a copy of the latest version  (see caching ).\par 
Versioning is necessary for accountability  ($--$David Durand, dgd@cs.bu.edu).
If an author is to be accountable for information published, it should
be possible to demonstrate later what he wrote, even if he has later
changed it.\par 
A WWW server may provide versioning, by allowing links between a document
version and its previou and succesive versions. This would be a good
use of link typing .\par 





\section{Multiuser considerations}Multiuser access is made easier with
a client/server model.We obviously
want this. We also need simultaneous
reading and writing of the same database.
 This is done by locking parts or
all of the database while they are
updated. One has to decide on the
unit of data to be locked. I ( TBL
) imagine that it  would be a node,
not a database.\par 
There is a specific problem which
all distributed hypertext systems
have had to tackle, in linking to
living documents .
\subsection{Annotation}Annotation is the  linking of a new
commentary node to someone else's
existing node. It is the essence
of a collaborative hypertext.  An
annotation does not modify the text
necessarily: one can separate protection
against writing and annotation.
\subsection{Protection}Protection against unauthorized reading
and writing is provided by servers.
We use the word ªdomainº to describe
a set of data which has the same
protection.  Life is simple if the
domain is the database, or all the
data administered by a given server.
 One can also add author-based protection
to the contents of a node, or links,
which have author information stored
about them.\par 
There is a problem illustrated by
the following example. One might
want to make a private annotation
to something which is visible world-wide
but unwritable. The annotation would
be invisible to another reader: it
would be stored in a private domain.
 The  node itself is visible everywhere:
it is stored in a public domain.
This is a general problem of links
being in a different domain to nodes.
\subsection{Private overlaid web}A possible solution to this is to
have, in the private domain,  a partial
copy of the public web, so that link
information can be added to it. 
The copy of the net could also be
used to tag on local cached copies
of the contents of the remote nodes.\par 
The writer would have to be aware
of the domain into which he was writing.
 One could use a server per domain,
but could imagine the need for more
than one server per domain, or more
than one domain per server.\par 
See also: Generic Linking
\subsection{Locking and modifying}Modification of text in  a multiuser
environment requires in principle
some sort of atomic locking feature,
so that two users do not update the
same text at the same time. In fact
some systems do not have this and
still survive quite well: it depends
a lot on the human environment.\par 
Practically, the HTTP protocol must
contain a lock/unlock command, and
some way of recovering from a lock
left on by a vanished user. The actual
implementation will depend on the
server or gateway. In the case of
files, then a number of possibilitie
exist:
\begin{itemize}
\item One can write-protect the file temporarily.
This unfortunately levaes no clue
as to who has locked it, when and
why. It is also indistinguishable
from a genuine protection to a document
which should not be modified
\item One can create  a lock file containing
information about who/when/why, whose
name is derived from the name of
the file in question.
\end{itemize}


\subsection{Annotation }Annotation is the  linking of a new commentary node to someone else's
existing node. It is the essence of a collaborative hypertext.  (See
Multiuser considerations )\par 
There is a problem when the web includes more than one authentication
domain. See ªprotectionº.  \par 






\section{Notification of new material}Does one need to bring it to a reader's
attention when new unread material
is added?
\begin{itemize}
\item Asynchronously (e.g. by mail) when
the update is made?
\item Synchronously when he browses or
starts the application?
\item Under the control of the modifying
author? (i.e. can I say whether my
change is a notifiable change? -
Yes)
\end{itemize}How do you express interest - in
a domain, in a node, in things near
a node, in anything you have read
already, etc?  A separate web which
is stored locally, and logically
overlay the public web?\par 
There are two ways to make the connection
between the modified material, and
an interested person. One is, at
the time of modification, to trace
the interested parties. The other
is, at some later time, for a daemon
program (or a browser) to make a
search for new things of interest
to a given reader.\par 
This is an essential feature. I suspect
that a mixture of the two techniques
 might be  necessary.  Efficient
dating of nodes, and date-based searches
provided by the server, could make
it easier for the browser to find
interesting things which are new.
It should also be possible to create
a mailing list of people interested
in a given topic, and use it to mail
announcements of change.\par 
This requirement is addressed by
the "Interested" relationship of
HTML, along with the POST method
of HTTP for a generic notification
semantics.\par 




\section{Topology}Here are a few questions about the underlying connectivity of  a hypertext
web.
\subsection{Are links two- or multi-ended?}The term "link" normally indeicates with two ends. Variations of this
are liks with multiple sources and/or multiple destinations, and constructs
which relate more than two anchors. The latter map onto logic description
systems, predicate calculus, etc. See the "Aquanet" system  from Xerox
PARC - paper at HT91).  This is a natural step from hypertext whose
the links are typed with semantic content.   For example, the relation
"Document A is a basis for document B given argument C". From now
on however, let us restrict ourselves to links in the conventional
sense, that is, with two ends.
\subsection{Should the links be  monodirectional or bidirectional? }If they are bidirectional, a link always exists in the reverse direction.
A disadvantage of this being enforced is that it might constrain the
author of a hypertext - he might want to constrain the reader.  However,
an advantage is that often, when a link is made between two nodes,
it is made in one direction in the mind of its author, but another
reader may be more interested in the reverse link. Put another way,
bidirectional linking allows the system to deduce the inverse relationship,
that if A includes B, for example, that B is part of A. This effectively
adds information for free. This is important when a critical parameter
of the system is how long it takes someone to create a link.\par 
KMS and hypercard have  one-way links; Enquire has  two-way links.\par 
There is a question of how one can make a two-way link to a protected
database. The automatic addition of the reverse link is very useful
for enhancing the information content of the database.  See also:
Private overlaid web , Generic Links .\par 
It may be useful to have bidirectional links from the point of view
of managing data. For example: if a document is destroyed or moved,
one is aware of what dangling links will be created, and can possibly
fix them.\par 
A compromise that links be one-way in the data model, but that a reverse
link is created when any link is made, so long as this can be done
without infringing protection. An alternative is for the reverse links
to be gathered by a background process operating on a basically monodirectionally
linked web. See Building Back-links.
\subsection{Should anchors have more than one link?}There is a design issue in whether one anchor may lead to many links,
and/or on link have many anchors. It seems reasonable for many anchors
to lead to the same reference. If one source anchor leads to more
than one destination anchor, then there will be ambiguity if the anchor
is clicked on with a mouse. This could be resolved by providing a
menu to the user, but I feel this would complicate it too much. I
therefore suggest a many-to-one mapping. JFG disagrees and would like
to see a small menu presented to the user if the link was ambiguous.
Microcosm does this.
\subsection{Should links be typed?}A typed link carries some semantic information, which allows the system
to manage data more efficiently on behalf of the user.  A default
type ("untyped") normally exists in some form when types are implemented.
See also a  list of some types . (Should a link be allowed to have
many types? (- JFG )  I don't think so: that should be represented
by more than one link.(- TBL ))\par 
Link typing helps with the generation of graphical overviews , and
with automatic tracing .
\subsection{Should links contain ancillary information?}Does the system allow dating, versioning, authorship, comment text
on a link?  If so, how is it displayed and accessed? This sort of
information complicates the issue, in that readable information is
no longer carried within node contents only. Pretty soon, following
this path leads to a link becoming a node in itself, annotatable and
all.  This perverts the data model significantly, and I cannot see
that that is a good idea. Information about the link can always be
put in the source node, or in an intermediate node, for example an
annotation. However, this makes tracing more difficult. It is certainly
nice to be able to put a comment on a link. Perhaps one should make
a link annotatable. I think not.
\subsection{Should a link contain Preview information?}This is information stored at the source to allow the reader to check
whether he wants to follow a link before he goes. I feel that the
system may cache some data (such as the target node title), or the
writer of the node may include some descriptive material in the highlighted
spot, but it is not necessary to include preview information just
because access may be slow. Caching should be done instead of corrupting
the user interface. If you have a fast graphic overview , this could





\section{Link Types}See discussion of whether links should
be typed .\par 
Descriptive (normal) link types are
mainly for the benefit of users and
tracing, and graphics representation
algorithms. Some link types for example
express relationships between the
things described by two nodes.\par 
A Is part of B  / B includes A\par 
A Made B / B is made by A\par 
A Uses B  / B is used by A\par 
A refers to B / B is referred to
by A
\subsection{Magic link types}These have a significance known to
the system, and may be treated in
special ways.  Many of these relate
whole nodes, rather than particular
anchors within them.  (See also multiended
links and predicate logic) Suggestions:
\subsubsection{UseIndex}The destination is the related index
for a search by a user reading this
document who asks for an index search
function.\par 
A document may have any number of
index links, causing several indexes
top be searched in a client-defined
manner.
\subsubsection{UseGlossary}The destination of the link is an
index which should be used to resiolve
glossary queries in the document.
(Typically, a double-clik on a word
which is not within an anchor).\par 
A document may have any number of
glossary links.
\subsubsection{Annotation}The information in the destination
node is additional to that in the
source node, and may be viewed at
the same time. It may be filtered
out (as a function of author?).\par 
Annotation is used by one person
to write the equivalent of "margin
notes" or other criticism on another's
document, for example.\par 
Tracing may ignore annotations when
generating trees or sequences.
\subsubsection{Next, Previous, Up}These terms may be applied to the
tree the user creates in her browsing,
but if the author puts links in,
then a tree structure may be proposed
by the author.   This is very natural
with hypertext versiins of books,
etc.
\subsubsection{Embedded information}If this link is followed, the node
at the end of it is embedded into
the display of the source node. This
is supported by Guide, but not many
other systems.  It is used, in effect,
by those systems (VAX/notes under
Decwindows, Microsoft Word) which
allow "Outlining" $--$ expanding a
tree bit by bit.\par 
The browser has a more difficult
job to do if this is supported.
\subsubsection{person described by node A is author
of node B}This information can be used for
protection, and informing authors
of interest, for sending mail to
authors, etc.
\subsubsection{person described by node A is interested
in node B}This information can be used for
informing readers of changes.
\subsubsection{Node A is in fact a previous version
of node B}
\subsubsection{Node A is in fact a set of differences
between B and its previous}version. This information will probably
not be stored as nodes, but be generated
from regular diff files. or some
other delta method.





\section{Document Naming}This is probably the most crucial
aspect of design and standardization
in an open hypertext system.  It
concerns the syntax of a name by
which a document or part of a document
(an anchor) is referenced from anywhere
else in the world.\par 
As many protocols are currently used
for information retrieval, the address
must be capable of encompassing many
protocols, access methods or, indeed,
naming schemes.\par 
The WWW scheme uses a prefix to give
the addressing sub-scheme, and then
a syntax dependent on the prefix
used, in order to be open to any
new naming systems.
\subsection{Name or Address, or Identifier?}Conventionally, a "name" has tended
to mean a logical way of referring
to an object  in some abstract name
space, while the term "address" has
been used for something which specifies
the physical location. The term "unique
identifier" generally referred to
a name which was guaranteed to be
unique but had little significance
as regards the logical name or physical
address. A name server was used to
convert names or unique identifiers
into addresses.\par 
With wide-area distributed systems,
this distinction blurs. Locally,
things which at first look like physical
addresses develop more and more levels
of translation, so that they cease
to give the actual location of the
object. At the same time, a logical
name or a unique identifier must
contain some information which allows
the name server to know where to
start looking. In a global context,
for example "1237159242346244234232342342423468762342368"
might well be unique, but it contains
insufficient (apparent) structure
for a name server to look it up.
The name "info.cern.ch" has a structure
which allows a search to be made
in several stages. In fact, practical
systems using unique identifiers
generally hide within them some clues
for the name server, such as a node
name.\par 
A hypertext link to a document ought
to be specified using the most logical
name as opposed to a physical address.
This is (almost) the only way of
getting over the problem of documents
being physically moved. As the naming
scheme becomes more abstract, resolving
the name becomes less of a simple
look-up and more of a search.\par 
One expects in practice the translation
of a document name taking several
stages as the name becomes less abstract
and more physical.
\subsection{Hints}Some document reference formats contain
"hints" to the reader about the document,
such as server availability, copyright
status, last known physical address
and data formats. It is very important
not to confuse these with the document's
name, as they have a shorter lifetime
than the document.
\subsection{X500}The X500 directory service protocol
defines an abstract name space which
is hierarchical. It allows objects
such as organizations, people, and
documents to be arranged in a tree.
Whereas the hierarchical structure
might make it difficult to decide
in which of two locations to put
an object (it's not hypertext), this
does allow a unique name to be given
for anything in the tree. X500 functionally
seems to meet the needs of the logical
name space in a wide-area hypertext
system. Implementations are somewhat
rare at the moment of writing, so
it cannot be assumed as a general
infrastructure.\par 
If this direction is chosen for naming,
it still leaves open the question
of the format of the address into
which a document name will be translated.
This must also be left as open-ended
as the set of protocols.
Tim BL





\section{Document formats}The question of the format of the
contents of a node is independent
of the format of all the management
information (except for the format
of the anchor position within the
node content). Therefore, the hypertext
system can be largely defined without
specifying the node format. However,
agreement must be reached between
client and server about how they
exchange content information. Many
hypertext systems qualify as ªhypermediaº
systems because they handle media
other than plain text. Examples are
graphics, video and sound clips,
object-oriented graphics definitions,
marked-up text, etc. 
\subsection{Format negotiation}Most hypermedia systems on the market
today have the same application program
responsible for the hypertext navigation
and for the browsing. It would be
safer to separate these features
as much as possible: otherwise, in
defining a universal hypertext system,
one is burdened with defining a universal
multimedia browser. This would certainly
not stand the test of time. Node
content must be left free to evolve.
This implies that format conversion
facilities must be available to allow
simple browsers to access data which
is stored in a sophisticated format.
Such conversion facilities tend to
exist in many applications, though
not, in general, in hypertext applications.\par 
The format of the content of a node
should be as flexible as possible.
Having more than one format is not
useful from the user's point of view
$--$ only from the point of view of
an evolving system.  I suggest the
following rules:
\subsection{1. Basic formats}There is a set of formats which every
client must be able to handle. These
include 80-column text and basic
hypertext  ( HTML ).
\subsection{2. Conversion}A server providing a format which
is not in the basic set of formats
required for a client must have the
possibility of generating some sort
of conversion of the text (even if
necessary an apology for non-conversion
in the case of graphics to text)
for a client which cannot handle
it.  This ensures universal readability
world over.
\subsection{3. Negotiation}For every format, there must be a
set of other possible formats which
the server can convert it into, and
the most desirable format is selected
by negotiation between the two parties.
The negotiation must take into account:
\begin{itemize}
\item the expected translation time, including
current load factors
\item the expected data degradation
\item the expected transmission time (?!!)
\end{itemize}The times one could assume will be
roughly proportional to the length
of the document, or at least linear
in it.\par 
Application-specific node formats
(e.g. physics event) would allow
specialized browsers to perform local
processing. This is a natural extension
of the hierarchy of node formats.
I would suggest one stick to the
rule that a server providing such
a type of data must provide some
default conversion to a standardized
view.\par 
An index or a keyword could be a
specific node format which would
be manageable by a browser.
\subsection{Examples}Examples of rich text formats which
exist already at CERN are as follows,
with, in brackets after each, other
formats into which it might be convertible:
\begin{itemize}
\item SGML ( Tex ,  Postscript, plain text)
\item Bookmaster (Postscript, I3812, plain
text)
\item TeX  (DVI, plain text)
\item DVI 
(IBM 3812, Postscript, etc)
\item Microsoft RTF (postscript, 
plain
text, Next ªWriteNowº) - See Specs
\item Postscript, Editable Postscript (IBM
3812 bitmap)
\item plain text
\end{itemize}When a server (or browser) is obliged
to perform a conversion from one
format to another, one imagines that
the result would be cached so that,
if the same conversion were needed
later, it would be available more
rapidly. Format conversion, like
notification of new material, is
something which can be triggered
either by the writer or by the browser.
In many cases, a conversion from,
say, SGML into Postscript or plain
text would be made immediately on
entry of the new material, and kept
until the source has been updated
(See caching , design issues ).


\section{Document caching}Three operations in the retrieval of a document may take significant
time:
\begin{itemize}
\item Format conversion by the server, including version regeneration
\item Data transmission across the network
\item Format conversion by the browser
\end{itemize}At each stage, the server (in the first case) or browser (in the other
cases) may decide to keep a temporary copy of the result.  This copy
should ideally be common to many browsers.\par 
Automatic caching relieves the user of having to explicitly save things
which may be referred to again. It also relieves the system of keeping
multiple copies (one for each user who has read the document). It
allows local disk space to used optimally. Cache management takes
into account such factors as
\begin{itemize}
\item expiry date
\item file size
\item time taken to get the file
\item frequency of access
\item time since access
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Expiry date}As a guide to help a cache program optimise the data it caches, it
is useful if a document is transmitted with an estimate by the server
of the lengt of time the data may be kept for.  This allows fast changing
documents to be flushed from the system, preventing readers from being
mislead.  (I would not propose any notification of document changes
to be distributed to cache managers automatically). For example, an
RFC may be cached for years, while the state of the alarm system may
be marked as valid for only one minute.\par 
Window-oriented browsers effectively cache documents when they keep
several at a time in memory, in different windows. In this case, for
very volatile data, it may be useful to have the browser automatically
refresh the window when its data expires. \par 
( design issues )


\section{Scott Preece on retrieval}
3  Oct 91
(See tracing, Navigation)\par 
My own "vision" of information retrieval models the whole database
as\par 
a network of objects.  Some of the objects are words, some of them
are\par 
index terms (from a controlled vocabulary), some of them are documents
some of them are pieces of documents, some of them are authors, etc.
There are also typed links between nodes in the graph $--$ words are
connected to documents by occurrence links, words are tied to words
by dictionary links, document pieces are tied to documents by "is
section of" links, etc.  Searching then becomes a process of turning
some of the nodes on, then turning on the nodes attached to them by
certain kinds of links, and so forth.\par 
So a dictionary expansion of the query works by activating a set of
terms and then following all the dictionary links from those terms
to other terms; a "search" works by activating a set of terms, then
following all the occurrence links to the documents they appear in;
relevance feedback works by starting with a set of activated documents
and following the links back to the terms that occur in them.\par 
If you use appropriate rules for calculating the level of activation
of a node you can implement many of the similarity functions that
have been reported in the literature and do a pretty effective job
of seaching. For instance, suppose you have a term node which is activated
with a\par 
weight of 1.  Suppose the spreading rule is that the weight is split
among all the occurrence links leading from it to documents and the\par 
combining rule is that all weights coming into a node are summed.
 Then after one spreading cycle each active document will have a weight
equal to the sum of the inverse frequency of the terms in contains,
which is a pretty reasonable search strategy.  One enhancement is
to have each link also weighted $--$ for term occurrence links it makes
sense for that weight to be the number of occurrences of the term
in the document.\par 
It is true that doing this effectively requires doubly inverting the
database, so that each document points to all its terms as well as
vice versa, although you can finesse that by encoding the document
as a list of terms rather than as Ascii text, with a slightly higher
cost of\par 
rebuilding the text when you need to display the document.\par 
\lbrack My dissertation, describing this in excruciating detail, is *A Spreading
Activation Model for Information Retrieval*, University of Illinois,
1981.  You might be able to get it from University Microfilms if you're
really interested.  If you're at Thinking Machines, Dave Waltz had
a copy once, but may well have shed it in the last decade.  The machine
readable form, alas, no longer exists (it lived on a long-dead PDP10)\rbrack \par 
scott
\begin{verbatim}--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
uucp:	uunet!uiucuxc!udc!preece,	 arpa:	preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com
phone:	217-384-8589			  fax:	217-384-8550
\end{verbatim}








\chapter{Relevant protocols}The WorldWideWeb software can pick
up information from many information
sources, using existing protocols.
Among these are file and news transfer
protocols. 
\section{HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)}WWW's own protocol,  a faster search
and retrieve protocol. It is "HTTP"
not because it is only for transfering
hypertext, but because it  operates
in a fast, stateless way as is needed
for hypertext jumps. For more details:
\begin{itemize}
\item The protocol as implemented initially
(1991)
\item The full protocol as defined in 1992
and implemented in March 93
\item Also see related specs:
\item RFC 1341: Mutipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions 
\end{itemize}
\section{File Transfer Protocol (FTP)}The file transfer protocol currently
most used for accessing fairly stable
public information over a wide area
is "Anonymous FTP". This means the
use of the internet File Transfer
Protocol without authentication.
As the WWW project currently operates
for the sake of public information,
anonymous FTP is quite appropriate,
and WWW can pick up any information
provided by anonymous FTP. FTP is
defined in RFC 959 which includes
material from many previous RFCs.
(See also:  file address syntax ).
Directories are browsed as hypertext.
The browser will notice references
to files which are in fact accessible
as locally mounted (or on DECnet
on VMS systems) and use direct access
instead.\par 
See also the prospero project and
the shift project, for more powerful
file access systems.
\section{Network News}The "Network News Transfer Protocol"
(NNTP) is defined in RFC 977 by Kantor
and Lampsley. This allows transient
news information in the USENET news
format to be exchanged over the internet.
The format of news articles is defined
in RFC 850, Standard for Interchange
of USENET Messages by Mark Horton.
This in turn refers to the standard
RFC 822 which defines the format
of internet mail messages. News articles
make good examples of hypertext,
as articles contain references to
other articles and news groups. News
groups appear like directories, but
more informative.
\section{Gopher}The Gopher distributed information
system uses a lightweight protocol
very similar to HTTP. Therefore,
it is now included in every WWW client,
so that the Gopher world can be browsed
as part of the Web. Gopher menus
are easily mapped onto hypertext
links. It may be that future versions
of the Gopher and HTTP protocols
will converge.
\section{Z39.50}With the use of the freeWAIS software
from CNIDR, the W3 software now accesses
WAIS servers directly. WAIS is a
variant of the z39.50 protocol. This
is being developed from earlier versions
which did not have the functionality
required for NIR. $--$ see draft standards
documents .







\section{HTTP 0.9}This document defines the Hypertext
Transfer protocol  (HTTP) as originally
implemented by the WorldWideWeb initaitive
software in the prototype released.
This is a subset of the full  HTTP
protocol, and is known as HTTP 0.9.
\par 
No client profile information is
transferred with the query. Future
HTTP protocols will be back-compatible
with this protocol.\par 
This restricted protocol is very
simple and may always be used when
you do not need the capabilities
of the full protocol which is backwards
compatible.\par 
The definition of this protocol is
in the public domain (see policy
).\par 
The protocol  uses the normal internet-style
telnet protocol style on a TCP-IP
link. The following describes how
a client acquires a (hypertext) document
from an HTTP server, given an HTTP
document address .
\subsection{Connection}The client makes a TCP-IP connection
to the host using the domain name
or IP number , and the port number
given in the address.\par 
If the port number is not specified,
80 is always assumed for HTTP.\par 
The server accepts the connection.\par 
Note: HTTP currently runs over TCP,
but could run over any connection-oriented
service.   The interpretation of
the protocol below in the case of
a sequenced packet service (such
as DECnet(TM) or ISO TP4) is that
that the request should be one TPDU,
but the response may be many.
\subsection{Request}The client sends a document request
consisting of a line of ASCII characters
terminated by a CR LF (carriage return,
line feed) pair. A well-behaved server
will not require the carriage return
character.\par 
This request consists of the word
"GET", a space, the document address
, omitting the "http:, host and port
parts when they are the coordinates
just used to make the connection.
(If a gateway is being used, then
a full document address may be given
specifying a different naming scheme).\par 
The document address will consist
of a single word (ie no spaces).
If any further words are found on
the request line, they MUST either
be ignored, or else treated according
to the full HTTP spec .\par 
The search functionality of the protocol
lies in the ability of the addressing
syntax to describe a search on a
named index .\par 
A search should only be requested
by a client when the index document
itself has been descibed as an index
using the  ISINDEX tag .
\subsection{Response}The response to a simple GET request
is a message in hypertext mark-up
language ( HTML ). This is a byte
stream of ASCII characters. \par 
Lines shall be delimited by an optional
carriage return followed by a mandatory
line feed chararcter. The client
should not assume that the carriage
return will be present.  Lines may
be of any length. Well-behaved servers
should retrict line length to 80
characters excluding the CR LF pair.\par 
The format of the message is HTML
- that is, a trimmed SGML document.
Note that this format allows for
menus and hit lists to be returned
as hypertext. It also allows for
plain ASCII text to be returned following
the  PLAINTEXT tag .\par 
The message is terminated by  the
closing of the connection by the
server.\par 
Well-behaved clients will read the
entire document as fast as possible.
The client shall not wait for user
action (output paging for example)
before reading the whole of the document.
The server may impose a timeout of
the order of 15 seconds on inactivity.\par 
Error responses are supplied in human
readable text in HTML syntax. There
is no way to distinguish an error
response from a satisfactory response
except for the content of the text.
\subsection{Disconnection}The TCP-IP connection is broken by
the server when the whole document
has been transferred.\par 
The client may abort the transfer
by breaking the connection before
this, in which case the server shall
not record any error condition.\par 
Requests are idempotent .  The server
need not store any information about
the request after disconnection.
Tim BL\par 






\section{HyperText Transfer Protocol Requirements}These are dsicussions of requirements
for HTTP. See also:
\begin{itemize}
\item The HTTP2 specification
\item Why a new protocol? , 
\item Other protocols used
\item the HTTP protocol as currently implemented
\item Protocol design issues .
\end{itemize}The definition of this protocol is
in the public domain (see policy
). 
\subsection{Underlying protocol}Current HTTP uses  ASCII transmission
over a  telnet-style internet protocol,
to make it simple to program, so
that it will catch on: conversion
to run over an OSI stack will be
simple as the structure of the messages
is well defined.\par 
HTTP2  similiarly runs ove an ASCII
telnet-style link.  the fiedls are
represened in RFC-xxxx style mail
message format, and as far as possible
are taken from the equivalent mail
header names.
\subsection{Idempotent }This protocol is stateless, in that
no state is kept by the server on
behalf of the client.  (This does
not rule out caching by the server
internally).
\subsection{Request: Information transferred
from client}Parameters below,  however represented
on the network, are given in upper
case, with parameter names in lower
case. This set assumes a model of
format negociation in which in which
the client says what he can take,
and the server decides what to give
him. One imagines that each function
would return a status, as well as
information specified below.\par 
When running over a byte stream protocol,
SGML would be an encoding possibility
(as well as ASN/1 etc).
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[GET document\_name  HTRQ
] Please transfer
a named document back. Transfer the
results back in a standard format
or one which I have said I can accept.
\item[SEARCH  keywords
] Please search the
given index document for all items
with the given word combination,
and transfer the results back as
marked up hypertext. This could elaborate
to an SQL query. There are many advantages
in making the search criterion just
a subset of the document name space.
\item[SINCE datetime
] For a search, refer
to documents only dated on or after
this date. Used typically for building
a journal, or for incremental update
of indexes and maps of the web.
\item[BEFORE datetime
] For a search, refer
to documents before this date only.
\item[ACCEPT format penalty
] I can accept
the given formats . The penalty is
a set of numbers giving an estimate
of the data degradation and elapsed
time penalty which would be suffered
at the CLIENT end by data being received
in this way. Gateways may add or
modify these fields.
\item[PORT
] See the RFC959 PORT command.
 We could change the default so that
if the port command is NOT specified,
then data must be sent back down
the same link. In an idempotent world,
this information would be included
in the GET command.
\item[HEAD doc
] Like GET, but get only header
information. One would have to decide
whether the header should be in SGML
or in protocol format (e.g. RPC parameters
or internet mail header format).
The function of this would be to
allow overviews and simple indexes
to be built without having to retrieve
the whole document.  See the RFC977
HEAD command. The process of generation
of the header of a document from
the source (if that is how it is
derived) is subject to the same possibilties
(caching, etc) as a format convertion
from the source.
\item[USER id
] The user name for logging
purposes, preferably a mail address.
Not for authentication unless no
other authentication is given.
\item[AUTHORITY authentication
] A string
to be passed across transparently.
The protocol is open to the authentication
system used.
\item[HOST
] The calling host name - useful
when the calling host is not properly
registered with a name server.
\item[Client Software
] For interest only,
the application name and version
number of the client software.  These
values should be preserved by gateways.
\end{DL}

\subsection{Response}Suppose the response is an SGML document,
with the document type a function
of the status. ( Example )
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Status
] A status is required in machine-readable
format. See the 3-figure status codes
of FTP for example. Bad status codes
should be accompanied by an explantory
document, possible conianing links
to futher information. A possibility
would be to make an error response
a special SGML document type. Some
special status codes are mentioned
below .
\item[Format
] The format selected by the
server
\item[Document
] The document in that format
\end{DL}

\subsection{Status codes}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Success
] Accompanied by format and
document.
\item[Forward
] Accompanied by new address.
The server indicates a new address
to be used by the client for finding
the document. the document may have
moved, or the server may be a name
server.
\item[Need Authorisation
] The authorisation
is not sufficient. Accompanied by
the address prefix for which authorisation
is required.  The browser should
obtain authoisation, and use it every
time a request is made for a document
name matching that prefix.
\item[Refused
] Access has been refused.
Sending (more) authorization won't
help.
\item[Bad document name
] The document name
did not refer to a valid document.
\item[Server failure
] Not the client's fault.
Accompanied by a natural language
explanation.
\item[Not available now
] Temporary problem
- trying at a later time might help.
This does not i,ply anything about
the document name and authorisation
being valid. Accompaned by a natural
language explaination.
\item[Search fail
] Accompanied by a  HTML
hit-list without any hits, but possibly
containing a natural explanation.
\end{DL}

Tim BL



\subsection{Rules for Penalty calculation}There are two sorts of transformation: (a) conversion from one format
into another, for reasons of presentation, and whereby information
generally is lost, and (b) encoding, for reasons of speed (compaction),
security (encryption), or transmission, and whereby the information
and format remain untouched.\par 
There are two questions to consider when deciding on different possible
transfer formats between servers and clients: Information degradation
and elapsed time. 
\subsubsection{Degradation}When information is converted from one format to another,  it may
be degraded. For example, when a postscript file is rendered into
bitmap, it loses its potentially infinite resolution; when a TeX file
is rendered into pure ASCII, it loses its structure and formatting.\par 
This degradation is difficult to guess from simply the file type.
and for a given file it is quite subjective. Any attempt to estimate
a penalty will therefore be very aproximate, and only useful for distinguishing
widely differing cases. A suitable unit would be the proportion, between
0 and 1, of the information which is not lost. Let's call it the degradation
coefficient.  One would hope that these coefficiemnts are multiplicative,
that is that the process of converting a document into one format
with degradation coeficient c1 and then further converting the result
of that with coeficient c2 would in all be a process with coeffcient
c1*c2.  This is not, in fact, necessarily the case in practice but
is a reasonable guess when we know no better. 
\subsubsection{Elapsed time}The elapsed time is another penalty of conversion. As an aproximation
one might assume this to be linear in the size of the file.  It is
not easy to say whether the constant part or the size-proportional
part is going to be the most important. The server, of course, knows
the size of the file.  It can in fact as a result of experience make
improving guesses as to the conversion time. The conversion time will
be a function also of local load.  For particular files, it may be
affected by the caching of final or intermediate steps in a conversion
process. Given a model in which the server makes the decision on the
basis of information supplied by the client,  this information could
include, for each type,  both the constant part (seconds) and the
size-related part (seconds per byte).\par 

Tim BL, RC





\section{Why a new protocol?}Existing protocols cover a number
of different tasks.
\begin{itemize}
\item Mail protocols allow the transfer
of transient messages from a single
author to a small number of recipients,
at the request of the author.
\item File transfer protocols allow the
transfer of data at the request of
either the sender or receiver, but
allow little processing of the data
at the responding side.
\item News protocols allow the broadcast
of transient data to a wide audience.
\item Search and Retrieve protocols allow
index searches to be made, and allow
document access. Few exist: Z39.50
is one and could be extended for
our needs.
\end{itemize}The protocol we need  for information
access ( HTTP ) must provide
\begin{itemize}
\item A subset of the file transfer functionality
\item The ability to request an index search
\item Automatic format negotiation.
\item The ability to refer the client to
another server
\end{itemize}
Tim BL






\chapter{WWW Names and Addresses: URIs}Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
is the Internet name for a WWW address.
The specification of URLs is a draft
RFC, and comprises the following
sections:
\begin{itemize}
\item Summary
\item Terms
\item Requirements
\item Recommendations
\item Specific Schemes
\item BNF-Style syntax definition
\item Security Considerations
\item Conclusion
\item Acknowledgements
\item References
\end{itemize}WWW will use any new forms of naming
which give features such as persistence
and redundancy, when the are available,
by extension of the set of schemes
in the URI.\par 
This subject is discussed by the
URI working group of the IETF (mail
uri-request@bunyip.com to join).
The following material may also be
of interest:
\begin{itemize}
\item URI WG discussion list archive
\item Discussion materials
\item a discussion of design issues involved
,
\end{itemize}
\section{UR Terms}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[URI
]Uniform Resource Idenifier.  (originally,
Universal).  The generic set of all
names/addresses which are short strings
which refer to objects.  The exact
properties of each URI scheme depend
on the scheme you are talking about.
(Originally UDI in some www documents).

\item[URL
]Uniform Resource Locators. Term
introducted by the IETF in forming
the URI working group to point out
that currently available URIs are
mainly addresses rather than names.
 Exactly what consitutes a locator
as opposed to a name is basically
lack of persistence, but this is
a much discussed point and impossible
to define precisely.  In practice,
the set of schmes referring to existing
protocolls, listed in the URL specification.
\item[URN
]Uniform Resource Name. 1.  Any
URI which is not a URL.  2. A particular
scheme which is currently (1991,2,3)
under development by the IETF, which
should provide for the resolution
using internet protocols of names
which have a greater persistence
than that currently assiated with
internet host names or organizations.
 When defined, a URN(1) will be an
example of a URN(1).
\end{DL}

\begin{verbatim} 	
	|							|
	|	 _______________	 _______________	|
	|	|  ftp:		|	|  urn:		|	|
	|	|  gopher:	|	|  fpi: ?	|	|
	|	|  http:	|	|		|	|
	|	|  etc		|	|		|	|
	|	|_______________|	|_______________|	|
	|		URLs			URNs		|
	||
				   URIs
	

\end{verbatim}

\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[URC
]Uniform Resource Citation.  A
set of attribute/value pairs describing
an object.  Some of the values may
be URIs of various kinds.  Others
may include, for example, athorship,
publisher, datatype, date, copyright
status and shoe size.  Not normally
discussed as a short string, but
a set of fields and values with some
defined free formatting. 
\item[URM
]Something introduced by Michael
Mealing along the lines of a URC
encoded into a string, with a rather
peculair syntax. ;-)
\end{DL}

\section{Overview of URLs}This is an old overview which is
not definitive. \par 
The format of a w3 address consists
of the name of the naming sub-scheme
to be used, then a name in a format
particular to that subscheme, then
an optional anchor identifier within
the document. For example, the format
is for all internet-based access
methods:\par 
  scheme : // host.domain:port /
path / path  \# anchor\par 
A suffix \# anchor id allows one to
refer to a particular anchor within
a document.\par 
A suffix ? followed by words separated
by + signs  allows one to seach an
index (see details ).\par 
References from one document to another
with a similar name may be abbreviated
to a relative name . This imposes
certain restrictions on the way that
the "path" is represented.\par 
A special format is used to represent
a search on an index . See also:
the full BNF description , about
escaping illegal characters .
\subsection{Examples}
\begin{verbatim}         file://cernvax.cern.ch/usr/lib/WWW/defaut.html#123

\end{verbatim}
This is a fully qualified file name,
referring to a document in the file
name space of the given internet
node, and an imaginary anchor 123
within it.
\begin{verbatim}
         #greg

\end{verbatim}
This refers to anchor "greg" in the
same document as that in which the
name appears.
\subsection{Naming sub-schemes}Different schemes usually use different
protocols on the network. The format
of the address after the scheme name
is a function of the particular scheme.
In practice, all internet-based schemes
have a common format for the node
name and port.   Schemes currently
defined are as follows, with links
to more details.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[file
] Access is provided to files,
using whatever means the browser
and/or gateways have to reach files
on obscure machines.
\item[news
] Access is provided to news articles,
and newsgroups, normally using the
NNTP protocol.
\item[http
] Access is provided to any other
information using the HTTP search
and retrieve protocol . The internal
addressing of the information system
is mapped onto a W3 path.
\item[telnet
] Access is provided by an interactive
telnet session. This is provided
ONLY as an interface to other existing
online systems which cannot or have
not been mapped onto the W3 space.
\item[gopher
] Access is provided using the
"gopher" protocol. The gopher protocol
is similar to HTTP but uses separate
concepts of menus and text files
rather than hypertext.
\item[wais
] Access is provided using the
WAIS adaptaion of the Z39.50 protocol.
\end{DL}
Systems which are not accessed directly
be W3 servers may be accessed though
gateways, in which case the document
address is encoded within the http
address of the document in the gateway.
Browsers which do not have the ability
to use certain protocols may  be
configured to automaticaly use certain
gateways for certain addressing schemes.\par 
This could allow, for example, simple
PC-based clients to follow links
through X500 name servers.



\section{Address for an index Search}If a given hypertext node is an index, or the server has an index
associated with it, then a search may be done on that index by suffixing
the name of the index with a list of keywords, after a question mark:
\begin{verbatim}		address_of_index ? keywordlist

\end{verbatim}
The address of the index is a normal hypertext address. In the keywordlist,
multiple keywords are separated by plus signs (+) .  (See BNF syntax
description .)  The resulting string still does not contain any spaces.
It may be considered to be the hypertext address of a document which
is the result of making the keyword search on the index. Normally,
if the search was successful, the document returned will contain anchors
leading to other documents which match the selection criteria. \par 
The search method, and the logical and lexical functions, weights,
etc applied to the keywords will depend on the index address.  One
actual index may have several hypertext addresses,  which when searched
on will behave in different ways. For example, one may allow a search
on author-given keywords only, while another may be a full text search.
These things particular to an index should be descibed in the hypertext
page for the index node itself (or in linked documents). For example,
a server may allow specific boolean search combinations may be represented
by the words "and", "or" and "not".
\subsection{Example:}
\begin{verbatim}			http://cernvm/FIND/?sgml+cms

\end{verbatim}
indicates the result of perfoming a search for keywords "sgml" and


\section{W3 addresses of files}The format of a hypertext reference to a file is an extension of the
unix naming system. The full explicit format is:\par 
   file :  //  node /  directories /  name\par 
The actual protocols used by the client depend on the implementation
of the browser and the environment. Typically, the browser will check
to see whether the node is the local node,  or a node for which files
are available mounted in some form of distributed file system.  If
neither of these are the case, then the browser may try rpc, anonymous
FTP or other protocols. 
\subsection{Examples}
\begin{verbatim}
         file://cernvax.cern.ch/usr/lib/WWW/defaut.html

\end{verbatim}
This is a fully qualified file name.
\begin{verbatim}
         fred.html

\end{verbatim}
This relative name , used within a file, will refer to a file of the
same node and directory as that file, but the name fred.html.
\subsection{Improvements : Directory access}The final file name should be optional. If the address ends with a
'/', the browser should retrieve the contents of the specified directory
and generate a page of virtual hypertext pointing to its contents.
In addition, it could display an information file contained in that
directory, if any is present. Suggested file names to search for in
order : README.html, *README*.html, README, *README*, *readme*.\par 

\section{Hypertext address for net News}The format of a hypertext reference to information in the internet/usenet
news system can take any of the following forms:
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[news: newsgroup
] This refers to a list of articles currently available
in the given newsgroup. The newsgroup is a series of alphanumeric
characters and dots.
\item[news:*
] This refers to a list of valid newsgroups.
\item[news: message\_id
] This refers to a given article explicitly. The message\_id
is optionally surrounded by angle brackets, and must contain an @
sign.
\item[
]
\end{DL}
Possible extensions to this are more generous wildcarding for the
list of newsgroups. It takes too long to load the whole list, and
it would be more useful to be able to browse through a set of newsgroups.\par 
There is no way of referring to "unread" articles. Keeping track of
this is the job of the browser.
\subsection{Examples}
\begin{verbatim}
         news:<12345678@cernvax.cern.ch>

         news:12345678@cernvax.cern.ch

\end{verbatim}
These addresses both refer to the same (imaginary!) article by its
unique message-id. (Note the hostname in the message-id is just part
of the message id generated by the sender of the message - it is not
a news server address).
\begin{verbatim}
	news:comp.sys.next.announce

\end{verbatim}
This refers to a list of articles in the newsgroup comp.sys.next.announce.


\section{Relative naming}The address of a hypertext document is normally given within the context
of another hypertext document. Where the addresses of the two documents
are the similar, this allows only the difference between the two names
to be given, saving space. An example is the address of the destination
of a hypertext link , which is specified relative to the source document
address.\par 
(A futher practical advantage is that a group of documents may be
transmitted without internal changes, or accessed using more than
one address.)\par 
This implies that certain characters ("/", "..") have a significance
reserved for representing a hierarchical space, and must be recognized
as such by both clients and servers.\par 
In the WWW address format , the rules for relative naming are:
\begin{itemize}
\item If the " scheme " parts  are different, the whole absolute address
must be given. Other wise, the scheme is omitted, and:
\item If the "host" and/or "port" parts are different, the host name and
all the rest of the address must be given. The host name may be given
using internet hostname conventions, ie domains may be omitted where
different. This is not very well defined:  one tends to assume that
if any dot is present, then the full domain name is being given, up
to the root (.) domain, while if there are no dots, the domain is
the same as that of the hostname part of the the base address.
\item If the access and host parts are the same, then the path may be given
with the unix convention, including the use of  ".." to mean indicate
deletion of a path element. Within the path:
\item If a leading slash is present, the path is absolute. Otherwise:
\item The last part of the path of the base address (e.g. the filename of
the  current document) is removed, and the given relative address
appended in its place.
\item Within the result,  all occurences "xxx/.."  or "/." are recursively
removed, where xxx is one path element (directory).
\end{itemize}The use of the slash "/" and double dot ".." in this case must be
respected by all servers. If necessary, this may mean converting their
local representations in order that these characters should not appear
within path elements (see "escaping" ).\par 


\section{HTTP Addressing}With an access code of http:,  a protocol introduced for  the WWW
initiative is used to acquire data from a server. This is the "Hypertext
Transfer protocol", HTTP , a simple search and retrieve (S and R)
protocol.\par 
The syntax of an http address is, with \lbrack \rbrack  indicating optional parts
(see BNF description ),
\begin{verbatim}		http : // hostname [ : port ] / path [ ? searchwords ]

\end{verbatim}
for example, the following are valid addresses:
\begin{verbatim} 		http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
		http://crnvmc.cern.ch/FIND?sgml+examples

\end{verbatim}
HTTP addresses conform to the WWW conventions,  including the possibility
of using the search format . The significance of the items in the
path part of the document name is completely up to the server. Different
paths may be used to select different databases, different views of
the same database, etc.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[hostname
] This is the name of the server in internet form. A numeric
form (e.g. 128.141.201.74) may be used, by the domain name form (e.g.
info.cern.ch) is preferred. The hostname is mandatory.
\item[port
] This is a numeric port number. If a non-numeric string is used,
it must be a defined service name. Note that as there is no central
repository for service names (they are defined locaaly for each host),
a service name is NOT an appropriate way to specify a port number
for a hypertext address. If the port number is omitted the preceding
colon must also be omitted. In this case, port number 2784 is assumed
\lbrack This may change!\rbrack .
\end{DL}
See also: WWW addressing in general , HTTP protocol .


Tim BL



\section{Telnet addressing}A telnet address is a spcecial case of a W3 address.\par 
When a telnet address is used, information can only be rertrieved
using an interactive telnet session. This has the disadvantage that
information cannot be indexed, searched, etc automatically, nor can
it be gatewayed into other systems.  The telnet addressing form is
used to allow a pointer to information systems such as library information
systems which have not been gatewayed into the web properly yet.\par 
The syntax is, with \lbrack \rbrack  indicating optional parts (see full BNF)
\begin{verbatim}		telnet : / /  [ user @ ] host  [ : port ]

\end{verbatim}
There should be no spaces. For example, the following are valid telnet
addresses:
\begin{verbatim}		telnet://www@info.cern.ch:23
		telnet://www@info.cern.ch
		telnet://info.cern.ch

\end{verbatim}

\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[user
]is the optional name of the user to be used for login. If the
username  is omitted, then so must be the "@" sign. This is equivalent
to the argument used with the -l option on the ucb telnet command.
When the username is omitted, some access servers will prompt for
a username and password.
\item[host
]This is the name of the server in internet form. A numeric form
(e.g. 128.141.201.74) may be used, by the domain name form (e.g. 
info.cern.ch) is preferred. The host is mandatory.
\item[port
]This is a numeric port number. If a non-numeric string is used,
it must be a defined service name. Note that as there is no central
repository for service names (they are defined locaaly for each host),
 a service name is NOT an appropriate way to specify a port number
for a hypertext address. If the port number is omitted the preceding
colon must also be omitted. In this case, port number 23 is assumed.
\end{DL}

Tim BL



\section{W3 address syntax: BNF}This is a BNF-like description of the W3 addressing syntax . We use
a vertical line "$|$" to indicate alternatives, and \lbrack brackets\rbrack  to indicate
optional parts.   Spaces are representational only: no spaces are
actually allowed within a W3 address. Single letters stand for single
letters. All words of more than one letter below are entites described
elsewhere in the syntax description.  (Entity names are here linked
to their definitions, probably making this difficult to read with
the line mode browser.)\par 
An absolute address specified in a link is an anchoraddress . The
address which is passed to a server is a docaddress .
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[anchoraddress
] docaddress \lbrack  \# anchor \rbrack 
\item[docaddress
] httpaddress $|$ fileaddress $|$ newsaddress $|$ telnetaddress
$|$ prosperoaddress
$|$ gopheraddress $|$ waisaddress
\item[httpaddress
] h t t p :   / / hostport  \lbrack   / path \rbrack  \lbrack  ? search \rbrack 
\item[prosperoaddress$<$/a$>$
] p r o s p e r o : / / hostport
/  path
\item[fileaddress
] f i l e : / / host / path
\item[newsaddress
] n e w s : groupart
\item[waisaddress
]waisindex $|$ waisdoc
\item[waisindex
]w a i s : / / hostport / database \lbrack  ? search \rbrack 
\item[waisdoc
]w a i s : / / hostport / database / wtype / digits / path
\item[groupart
] * $|$ group $|$ article
\item[group
] ialpha \lbrack  . group \rbrack 
\item[article
] xalphas @ host
\item[database
]xalphas
\item[wtype
]xalphas
\item[telnetaddress
] t e l n e t : / / \lbrack  user @ \rbrack  hostport
\item[gopheraddress
] g o p h e r : / / hostport  \lbrack / gtype  \lbrack  / selector \rbrack 
\rbrack  \lbrack  ? search \rbrack 
\item[hostport
] host \lbrack  : port \rbrack 
\item[host
] hostname $|$ hostnumber
\item[hostname
] ialpha \lbrack   .  hostname \rbrack 
\item[hostnumber
] digits . digits . digits . digits
\item[port
] digits
\item[selector
] path
\item[path
] void $|$  xalphas  \lbrack   / path \rbrack 
\item[search
] xalphas \lbrack  + search \rbrack 
\item[user
] xalphas
\item[anchor
] xalphas
\item[gtype
] xalpha
\item[xalpha
] alpha $|$ \$ $|$ \_ $|$ @ $|$ ! $|$ \% $|$ {\char94} $|$ \& $|$ * $|$  (  $|$  ) $|$ . $|$ digit
\item[xalphas
] xalpha \lbrack  xalphas \rbrack 
\item[ialpha
] alpha \lbrack  xalphas \rbrack 
\item[alpha
] a $|$ b $|$ c $|$ d $|$ e $|$ f $|$ g $|$ h $|$ i $|$ j $|$ k $|$ l $|$ m $|$ n $|$ o $|$
p $|$ q $|$ r $|$ s $|$ t $|$ u $|$ v $|$ w $|$ x $|$ y $|$ z $|$ A $|$ B $|$ C $|$ D $|$ E $|$ F
$|$ G $|$ H $|$ I $|$ J $|$ K $|$ L $|$ M $|$ N  $|$ O $|$ P $|$ Q $|$ R $|$ S $|$ T $|$ U $|$ V $|$
W $|$ X $|$ Y $|$ Z
\item[digit
] 0 $|$1 $|$ 2 $|$ 3 $|$ 4 $|$ 5 $|$ 6 $|$ 7 $|$ 8 $|$ 9
\item[digits
] digit \lbrack  digits \rbrack 
\item[alphanum
] alpha $|$ digit
\item[alphanums
] alphanum \lbrack  alphanums \rbrack 
\item[void
]
\end{DL}
See also: General description of this syntax, Escaping conventions.

Tim BL



\section{Escaping illegal characters}The W3 address syntax allows a path to contain most printable ASCII
characters, but some are inevitably used for punctuation are excluded.
W3 addresses are sometimes used to represent addresses in some other
space. This happens when an HTTP server, for example, uses file names
as its document names, or when addresses from some other protocol
(Gopher, WAIS, etc) are mapped into the W3 web.\par 
In these cases, a convention is normally used to map illegal characters
in these "foreign" names onto the allowed set.\par 
In the case of an HTTP server,  any mapping may be used.\par 
A suitable convention is that a percent sign (\%) followed by two hexadecimal
digits (0-9 or a-f)  stands for the single character with ASCII hexadecimal
code represented by those two digits (Most significant digit first).\par 
A percent sign itself must therefore be represented by \%25, as 25
hex is the ASCII code for "\%".\par 

Tim BL







\section{Gopher addressing}Gopher addresses indicate that the
gopher protocol should be used to
access the information.  The Gopher
protocol is a simple internet protocol
similar to HTTP . It allows the transfer
of menus or plain text files.  (HTTP
expresses both menus and plain text
files as special cases of hypertext
files). See the gopher protocol notes
.   \par 
The syntax is, with \lbrack \rbrack  indicating
optional parts (see BNF )
\begin{verbatim}		gopher:// hostname [: port ] [ / [gtype [selector] ] ] [ ? search ]

\end{verbatim}
There should be no spaces. For example,
the following are valid addresses:
\begin{verbatim}		gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70
		gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70/1/
		gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70

\end{verbatim}
The W3 address for a gopher item
may be derived from the fields of
a gopher menu line which has the
format
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[host
] This is the name of the server
in internet form. A numeric form
(e.g. 128.141.201.74) may be used,
by the domain name form (e.g. info.cern.ch)
is preferred. The hostname is mandatory.
\item[port
] This is a numeric port number.
If a non-numeric string is used,
it must be a defined service name.
Note that as there is no central
repository for service names (they
are defined locaaly for each host),
a service name is NOT an appropriate
way to specify a port number for
a hypertext address. If the port
number is omitted the preceding colon
must also be omitted. In this case,
port number 70 is assumed.
\item[gtype
] This is a gopher item type
number, a (hopefully printable!)
ASCII character.  Currently these
types are all ASCII decimal digit
characters. Character "0" (hex 30)
 signifies a plain text file. Character
"1" signifies a Menu.  Character
"7" signifies a searchable index.
Character "8" should not be used
in a W3 address: use telnet addressing
instead.  In general W3 terms, the
type is the first part of the path.
The rest of the path is the gopher
selector string. The type field is
a hint to the client as to how to
represent the anchor, and how to
follow it.
\item[selector
] This is the string to be
sent to the gopher server to identify
the information required.  NOTE that
many but NOT all selector strings
start with the gtype field, so often
one sees the gtype field character
repeated in a gopher URL..
\end{DL}

\subsection{Finger URLs}It is possible to use gopher URLs
to point at "finger" resources, by
specifying port 79 and setting the
gtype field to "0". Note that this
is not designed in, but happens to
work due to the simplicity and similarity
between the two protocols.  The selector
string contains the username to be
"fingered". 
\subsubsection{Example}
\begin{verbatim}	gopher://wsinis04.info.win.tue.nl:79/0reinpost

\end{verbatim}
This refers to the result of  the
"finger reinpost@wsinis04.info.win.tue.nl"
command.
Tim BL




\section{W3 addresses for WAIS servers}Servers using the WAIS ("Wide Area Information Systems") protocols
from Thinking Machines may be accessed as part of the web using addresses
of the form (see BNF description)\par 
w a i s : / / hostport / database ...\par 
Access (currently) goes through a gateway which stores the "source"
files which contain the descriptions of WAIS servers. This address
corresponds to the address of an index. To this may optionally be
appended either a search string or a document identifier.\par 
Note that changes have been proposed to WAIS document id format, so
this representation of them may have to change with that format. Currently
the WAIS document address necessary for retrieval by a client requires
the following information, which is orginally provided by the server
in the hit list.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Document format
]This is normally "TEXT" but other formats such as PS,
GIF, exist.
\item[Document length
]This is needed by the client who must loop to retrie
the whole document in slices.
\item[Document identifier
]This is an entity consisting of numerically tagged
fields. the binary representation used by WAIS is transformed for
readability into  a sequence of  fields each consisting of a decimal
tag, an equals sign (=) , the field value, and a semicolon. Within
the field value, hex escaping is used for otherwise illegal characters.
\end{DL}
See also: Other W3 address formats, BNF definition.\par 







\chapter{HTML Overview}The WWW system uses marked up text
to represent a hypertext document
for transmision over the network.
The hypertext markup language is
an SGML format. \par 
To find out how to write HTML, or
to write a program to generate it,
read the following sections:-
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Text and Markup
] An introduction to
SGML
\item[The elements
] A list of the tags used
in HTML with their significance.
\item[Entities
] Special characters are represented
by SGML entities
\item[HTML Specification
] Guidance for parser
implementors
\item[DTD
] The SGML document type definition
for HTML. (Hypertext version )
\end{DL}
The following do not form part of
the specification
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Style Guide
] A guide to how to organize
and write online hypertext
\item[Beginner's guide
] Marc Andressen's
quick start to writing HTML
\item[Example
] A file containing a variety
of tags used for test purposes, and
its source text . See also finding
examples on the web .
\item[Future directions
] Changes suggested
for HTML improvements
\item[HTMLplus
] A more sophisticated document
format for more demanding applictions
than HTML. DTD and report .
\item[Constraints
] Design constraints for
HTML which might explain some of
its properties.
\item[LibHTML
] A conformant parsing code
library
\end{DL}
Other specifications which might
be of tangential interest are
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[text/enriched
] An internet draft on
a simpler non-SGML MIME data type.
\item[HTML+
]A more sophisticated document
type under development.  Will not
supercede HTML, but may be a superset.
\end{DL}








\section{HTML Elements}This is a list of elements used in
the HTML language.  Documents should
(but need not absolutely) contain
an initial HEAD element followed
by a BODY element. \par 
 Old style documents may contain
a just the contents of the normal
HEAD and BODY elements, in any order.
This is deprecated but must be supported
by parsers.\par 
See also:  Status of elements
\subsection{Properties of the whole document}Properties of the whole document
are defined by the following elements.
They should appear within the HEAD
element.  Their order is not significant.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[TITLE
] The title of the document
\item[ISINDEX
] Sent by a server in a searchable
document
\item[NEXTID
] A parameter used by editors
to generate unique identifiers
\item[LINK
] Relationship between this document
and another. See also the Anchor
element , Relationships .  A document
may have many LINK elements.
\item[BASE
] A record of the URL of the document
when saved
\end{DL}

\subsection{Text formatting}These are elements which occur within
the BODY element of a document. Their
order is the logical order in which
the elements should be rendered on
the output device.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Headings
] Several levels of heading
are supported.
\item[Anchors
] Sections of text which form
the beginning and/or end of hypertext
links are called "anchors" and defined
by the A tag.
\item[Paragraph marks
] The P element marks
the break between two paragraphs.
\item[Line Breaks
]Like paragraph marks,
but just forces a new line.
\item[Horizontal Rule
]A horizontal dividing
line etc
\item[Address style
] An ADDRESS element
is displayed in a particular style.
\item[Blockquote style
] A block of text
quoted from another source.
\item[Lists
] Bulleted lists, glossaries,
etc.
\item[Preformatted text
] Sections in fixed-width
font for preformatted text.
\item[Character highlighting
] Formatting
elements which do not cause paragraph
breaks.
\end{DL}

\subsection{Graphics}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[IMG
] The IMG tag allows inline graphics.
\end{DL}

\subsection{Obsolete elements}The other elements are obsolete but
should be recognised by parsers for
back-compatibility.







\section{SGML}ISO 8879:1986, Information Processing
$--$ Text and Office Systems $--$ Standard
Generalized Markup Language (SGML)\par 
This is an ISO standardised derivative
of an earlier IBM "GML".  It allows
the structure of a document to be
defined, and the logical relationship
of its parts. This structure can
be checked for validity against a
" Document Type Definition ", or
DTD. The SGML standard defines the
syntax for the document, and the
syntax and semantics of the DTD.
See books $--$ Eric van Herwijnen's
"Practical SGML" and  Charles Goldfarb's
"SGML Handbook". Some of the points
generally broght up in (frequent)
discussions of SGML follow.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[See also:
]Klensin on SGML
\end{DL}

\subsection{High level markup}An SGML document is marked up in
a way which says nothing about the
representation of the document on
paper or a screen. A presentation
program must marge the document with
style information in order to produce
a printed copy. This is invaluable
when it comes to interchange of documents
between different systems, providing
different views of a document, extracting
information about it, and for machine
processing in general.  However,
some authors feel that the act of
communication includes the entire
design of the document, and if this
is done correctly the formatting
is an essential part of authoring.
They resist any attempts to change
the representation used for their
documents.
\subsection{Syntax}The SGML syntax is sufficient for
its needs, but few would say that
it is particularly beautiful. The
language shows its origins in systems
where text was the principle content
and markup was the exception, so
a document which contains a lot of
SGML is clumsy.   There is always,
of course, an element of personal
taste to syntax.\par 
There are few obvious comments one
could make.
\subsection{Tools}For many years, SGML was generated
by hand, by people editing the source.
This has lead to a hatred of SGML
among those who prefer their own
mark-up language which may have been
quicker, more powerful, or more familiar.
The advent of WYSIWYG editors and
solid SGML applications should improve
that facet of SGML.
\subsection{Archive}There are a number of SGML archive
sites. In Germany, there the Darmstadt
archive .\par 
See also: HyTime , HTML , Hypertext
Document formats . Davenport. group
.\par 
A public domain parser, SGMLS, exists.
There is an archive of SGML related
information at ifi.uio.no
Tim BL




\subsection{AAP}AAP stands for the American Asociation of Publishers, one of the first groups to fix
on a common SGML DTD.






\section{Design Constraints}When designing the HTML document
type, consideration was given to
a certain simplicity in order to
allow many browsers and hopefully
editors to be developed on many platforms.
\subsection{Lack of nesting}Many text editing systems (Microsoft
Word, The NeXT text object, the Mac
text object, etc) handle text in
a variety of styles but do not have
any concept of nestable structure
in the SGML sense.\par 
The constraint here is therefore
that HTML be able to be mapped into
a sequence of paragraphs of styled
text, and that if that text is edited
that the editor should be able to
map the sequence of styles back onto
a sequence of elements in a well-defined
way. This allows some limited trivial
nesting (eg LI within UL) but no
general nesting, as a finite and
small set of styles is used. In particular,
the styles are not parameterized
by the nesting level.
\subsection{Logical Markup}It is required that HTML be a common
language between all platforms. This
implies no device-specific markup,
or anything which requires control
over fonts or colors, for example.
This is in keeping with the SGML
ideal.\par 
Lack of specific semantics\par 
Just as the markup must not be device-specific





\chapter{Library Internals $--$ OBSOLETE $--$
see new document}The WWW browsers and servers share
a common architrecure, and a libarry
of common code. (See also: Browser
operation , and utility modules which
are used throughout, and using the
common library .).\par 
In the contol flow diagram , common
code is to the right of the grey
line.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Application
] This module is the  main
program, and is window-system-dependent.
In the line mode browser , it is
HTBrowse .  The application is called
by the operating system, and manages
the overall running of the program.
It asks the navigation module to
load the default page. 
\item[Navigation
] The module which acually
loads documents is based in HTAccess.c.
This uses all the protocol modules
.  Given an anchor ID to jump to,
it asks the anchor object for the
address in order to load it.
\item[History
] This module records and replays
on request the documents which the
user vists.
\item[Format manager
] The format manager
uses the parser modules to load the
document as appropriate. It can also
decide on the format of a file from
its name.
\item[Anchor object
] The HTAnchor module
takes care of creating anchors, managing
the links between them and their
attributes. This module is independent
of the type of graphics object (text,
line drawing etc). It stores hypertext
addresses of anchors, and ensures
that anchors with the same address
are the same anchor. ( More )
\end{DL}

\section{Protocol modules}A protocol module is invoked by the
navigation module in order to access
a document. Each protocol  module
is responible for extracting information
from a local file or remote server
using a particular protocol.  Depending
on the protocol, the protocol module
either builds a graphic object (e.g.
hypertext) itself, or it passes a
socket descriptor to the format manager
for parsing by one of the parser
modules. 
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[File access
] HTFile.c provides access
to files, using HTFTP.c for remote
access.  The latter uses HTTCP for
common TCP routines.
\item[HTTP access
] The HTTP module handles
document search and retrieve using
the HTTP protocol.
\item[News access
] The NNTP internet news
protocol is handled by HTNews which
builds a hypertext.
\item[Gopher access
] The internet gopher
access to menus and flat files (and
links to telnet nodes etc) is handled
by HTGopher .
\item[WAIS access
] is implemented in a separate
gateway program .
\end{DL}

\section{Format conversion modules}These modules allow different formats
to be used to generate graphic objects.
They invoked by the format manager.
Currently we only parse HTML and
plain text, but obviously other formats
can be added.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[HTML
] Basic hypertext parsing is done
by HTML.c which uses the simple SGML
engine SGML.c as a basic tokeniser
and element stack manager.
\item[Plain text
] This is built directly
by the format manager as it is so
simple.
\end{DL}

\section{Graphic objects}A graphic object is a (complex) displayable
entity. It is built by a protocol
module directly or using a parser.
Graphic objects are in general necessarily
coded differently on diferent window
systems. The graphic object is resposible
for displaying istelf, catching mouse
clicks, and calling the navigation
object in order to follow links.
We use the more common term "document"
to describe the logical entity which
a graphics object represents and
displays.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Hypertext
] This object is window-system
dependent. In the line mode browser,
the GridText module is the hypertext
object, providing the generic functionality
of HText.h
\end{DL}

Tim BL






\section{Anchors}Anchors represent parts of graphic
objects which may be the sources
or destinations of links. Here follows
a general description of thir implementation
in the WWW architecure . (See definition
)\par 
An anchor be the source of no, one,
or many links . It has one "main"
link for the (common) case in which
it is the source for one link. (In
the w3 software, only the main link
is normally used - jan 92)\par 
An anchor may be the destination
of no, one, or many links.  The anchor
module stores all links known by
the program, and so in fact manages
a copy of a small part of the web.\par 
There are two types of anchors: Parenet
anchors and child anchors.
\subsection{Parent anchors}These represent whole documents.
 Every graphic object has an associated
parent anchor. Associated with a
parent anchor is data including:
\begin{itemize}
\item The title of the associated document,
if known. This allows the document's
title to be displayed in lists of
previous nodes visited,  etc., even
when the document itself has been
freed.
\item A flag as to whether the document
is an index.
\item The address of the document.  When
a new anchor is created, the code
ensures that if an anchor with that
address already exists, that that
anchor is returned instead, so no
duplicates can exist.
\item A list of children
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Child anchors}These represent parts of documents.
 The graphic object stores the correlation
between  the id of the anchor and
the actual space (time) shape which
is referred to. Child anchors contain
\begin{itemize}
\item A pointer to the parent.
\end{itemize}
Tim BL





\section{Utility modules}
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[HTChunk
] A module  which manipulates
flexibly arrays in memory.  See header
file .
\item[HTAtom
] A module which generates unique
32-bit pointers representeing strings,
for rapid comparison. See header
file .
\item[HTList
] A container object for other
objects. See header file .
\item[HTFont
] Definition of a font object.
See header file . No code.   Needs
to be changed for different font
systems.
\item[HTTCP
] General TCP-IP routines to
be used in combination of the socket
library. See header file .
\end{DL}

CBT







\section{Browser Operation}The WWW browsers operate, in general,
in the following manner.
\subsection{Data flow}The  data flow is demonstrated in
a separate diagram .  The application
gives the navigation module the home
page address. The anchor is generated
(using the Anchor object ) and passed
via HTAccess to the relevant protocol
module for loading.  In the case
of HTTP or a file, a character stream
of data is passed to the parser ,
which build a hypertext object. In
the case of news, the protocol module
builds the hypertext object itself.\par 
The hypertext object is built as
a stream of text interspersed with
style changes and anchor start/end
points. The parsers create the anchors,
giving their addresses, and just
pass the id of the object to the
graphic object.\par 
Events such as mouse clicks are picked
up by the application, and passed
to the hypertext object. This may
determine that a link should be followed,
in which case it invokes the navigation
module again, passing the anchor
object's id. The naviagation module
asks the anchor object for its address,
and so loads the next document. 
Tim BL


\section{Authorisaztion in the server}The authorization for a HTTP file server running on a unix system
uses the underlying file protection scheme.\par 
The user and password registration tools are those of the system,
so two parallel systems do not have to learned by administrators.\par 
The daemon may be run under a non-root uid so that it is less prone
to pose a security problem due to an obscure programming bug.\par 
The daemon will therefore only have access to certain files by virtue
of the uid under which it runs.  This will provide a certain security.
\par 
The daemon will itself voluntarily refuse access if the rule file
denies access.\par 
The daemon is running in secure mode it will require a user/password
pair for any file which does not  have public read access.  It will
check that the password is valid, then that the relevant user would
have access to the file.  Therefore the file must be accessible by
BOTH the uid under which the daemon runs, and the authorized user.\par 
Authorized useds may be dummy (non login) users representing groups
of people.\par 
Administration\par 
Every class of user having privileged access will have to be given
a (dummy) user id on the system using the normal tools.\par 
Every set of documents requiring a different pattern of access rights
 should be given a corresponding groups id using the normal tools.\par 
The many-many mapping of groups to users (traditionally, in the "/etc/groups"
file) may be used to describe the mapping of the document sets onto
the dummy users.\par 
Browser\par 
The browser maintains a list of server/user/password for each protected
server that the user has accessed during the session. (Note that the
first access of a protected document must necessarily fail, and lead
the browser to putting up a panel requesting the user/password pair.
As one wants to send the user/password pair only to the correct server,
the browser should not be so constructed as to contain or ask for
the triples before actual access).tbl ctb rc





\chapter{Coding Standards}This document describes a coding
style for C code (and therefore largely
for C++ and Objective-C code). The
style is used by the W3 project used
so that:-
\begin{itemize}
\item Code is portable and maintainable.
\item Code is easily readable by other
project members.
\end{itemize}If you have suggestions, do send
them. (We do not include points designed
to allow automatic processing of
code by parsers with an incomplete
awareness of C syntax.).   IF YOU
DO NOT ABIDE BY THIS GUIDE YOUR CODE
WILL ANNOY OTHER TEAM MEMBERS AND
MAY NOT PORT.\par 
The style guide is divided into sections
on Language features , Macros , Module
header , Modules in straight C ,
Function header , Code style , Identifiers
, Code management: the use of CVS
, Include files , Directory structure
, special marks .\par 
(See also pointers to some public
domain styles ).
Tim BL





\section{Language features}Code to be common shared code must
(unfortunately!) be written in C,
rather than any objective C or C++,
to ensure maximum portability. This
section does not apply to code written
for specific platforms.\par 
C code must compile under either
a conforming ANSI C compiler OR an
original Kernighan Ritchie C compiler.
Therefore, the \_\_STDC\_\_ macro must
be used to select alternative code
where necessary.. ( example )\par 
Code should compile without warnings
under an ANSI C compiler such as
gcc with all warnings enabled.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Parameters and Arguments
] The PARAMS(())
macro  is used to give a format parameter
list in a declataion so that it will
be suppressed if the compiler is
not standard C - see example .  The
ARGS1 macro is for the declaration
of the implementation,  taking first
the type then the argument name.
For n arguments, macros ARGn exists
taking 2n arguments each.
\item[\#endif
] Do put the ending condition
in a comment. Don't put  it as code
- it won't pass all compilers. 
\item[\#elif
] Don't use it. Basic cpp doesn't
know it.
\item[\#preprocessor statements
] DON'T indent
any preprocessor statements. They
must (for some compilers) begin in
column 1.
\item[const
] This keyword does not exist
in K C, so use the macro CONST which
expands to "const" under standard
C and nothing otherwise. $--$ See HTUtils.h
\end{DL}
(part of: style guide )
Tim BL





\section{Module Header}The module header is the comment
at the top of a .h or .c file. Information
need not (except for the title) be
repeated in both the .c and .h files.
Of course History sections are separate.
See a dummy example . Note:-
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[Heading
] To make it easy to spot the
file in a long listing, put a header
and te file name in the top right-hand
corner.
\item[ Authors
] Just a list to make the
initials intelligible. Use initials
in the history or in comments in
the file.
\item[History
] A list of major changes of
the file. You do not need to repeat
information carried by a code management
system or in an accompanying hypertext
file.
\item[Section headings
] Sections in the
file such as public data, private
module-wide data, etc should be made
visible. Two blank lines and a heading
are useful for this.
\end{DL}

Tim BL


\begin{verbatim}/*				Foo Bar Module			foobar.c
**				==============
**
** Authors:
**	JB	J. Bloggs, ACME Widget Company, TX, USA
**	JD	J. Doe, University of Tamahalahula, Samabaria
**
** History:
**	   Jan 1983	First wriiten as a widget sorter (JB)
**	23 Nov 1986	Converted into mangle worzle sorter (JD)
**	38 Dec 1992	Bug fix: Used to carsh on null worzles. (JD, JB)
**
** Copyright:
**	CERN copyright -- See Copyright.html
*/


/*			Global Data
**			-----------
*/
\end{verbatim}

Tim BL


\section{Function Headings}This style concerns the comments, and so is not essential to compilation.
However, it helps readability of code written by a number of people.
Some of these conventions may be arbitrary, but are none the less
useful for that. 
\subsection{Format}See a sample procedure heading . Note:-
\begin{itemize}
\item White space of two lines separating functions.
\item The identifier of the function right-justified to make it easy to
find when flicking through a listing
\item The separate definitions for standard and old C.
\item The macros PUBLIC and PRIVATE (in HTUtils.h ) expand to null and to
"static" respectively.  They show that one has thought about whether
visibility is required outside the module, and they get over the overloading
of the keyword "static" in C. Use one or the other. (Use for top level
variables too).
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Entry and exit condidtions}It is most important to document the function as seen by the rest
of the world (especially the caller). The most important aspects of
the appearance of the function to the caller are the pre- and post-conditions.\par 
The pre conditions include the value of the parameters and structures
they point to.  Both include any requirements on or changes to global
data, the screen, disk files, etc.\par 

Tim BL


\subsection{Function Heading: dummy example}
\begin{verbatim}}	/* previous_function() */


/*		Scan a line					scan_line()
**		-----------
** On entry,
**	l		points to the zero-terminated line to be scanned
** On exit,
**	*l		The line has null termintors inserted after each
**			 word found.
**	return value	is the number of words found, or -1 if error.
**	lines		This global value is incremented.
*/	
PRIVATE int scan_line ARGS1(const char *, l);
{
	/* Code here */


} /* scan_line() */ 
\end{verbatim}

Tim BL


\section{Function body layout}With the body of functions, this is the way we aim to do it...we're
not religious about it, but consistency helps.  If you think your
way is smarter, you may be right but this is the way we do it.  \par 
Whatever you do, NEVER make global changes to the indentation etc
in a file without agreement from me first. (It screws up diffs and
cde management as well as people).
\subsection{Indentation}
\begin{itemize}
\item Put opening \{ at the end of the same line as the if, while, etc which
affects the block;
\item Align the closing brace with the START of that opening line;
\item Indent everything between \{ and \}  by an extra 4 (FOUR) spaces.
\item Never indent preprocessor instructions (\#ifdef, etc), nor increase
the indentation level on account of preprocessor instructions.
\item Block comments should start with /* in column 1, end end with */ in
column 1. In between, having ** in column 1 is conventional but not
necessary for very large comments.
\item Comment the closing braces of conditionals and other blocks with the
type of block, including the correct sense of the condition of the
block being closed if there was an "else",  of the function name.
For example,
\end{itemize}
\begin{verbatim}			    if (cb[k]==0) {	/* if black */
				foo = bar;
			    } else {		/* if white */
				foo = foobar;
			    }			/* if white */
			} 		/* switch on character */
		    } 			/* loop on lines */
		}			/* scan_lines()	*/

\end{verbatim}



\section{Identifiers}When chosing identifier names, 
\begin{itemize}
\item Macros should be un upper case entirely unless they mimic and replace
a genuine function.
\item External names should be prefixed with HT to avoid confusion with
other projects' code. Wthin the rest of the identifier, we use initial
capitals a la Objective-C (e.g. HTSendBuffer).
\item The macro SHORT\_NAMES is defined on systems in which external names
must be unique to within 8 characters (case insesitive). If your names
would clash, at the top of the .h file for a module you should include
macros defining distinct short names:
\end{itemize}
\begin{verbatim}			#ifdef SHORT_NAMES
			#define HTSendBufferHeader	HTSeBuHe
			#define HTSendBuffer		HTSeBuff
			#endif


\end{verbatim}
(back to Overview)\par 



\section{Directory structure}This is an outline of the directory structure used to support multiple
platforms.
\begin{itemize}
\item All code is under a subdirectory "Implementation" at the appropriate
point in the tree.
\item All object files are in a subdirectory Implementation/xxx where xxx
is the machine name. See for example WWW/LineMode/Implementation/*.
\item Makefiles in the system-specific directories incldue a CommonMakefile
which is in the parent Implementation directory (..).
\end{itemize}



\section{Include Files}
\subsection{Module include files}Every module in the project should have a C \#incldue file defining
its interface, and a   .c source file (of the same name apart from
the suffix) containing the implementation. \par 
The .c file should \#include its own .h file.\par 
A .h file should be protected so that no errors occur if  it is \#included
twice.\par 
An interface which relies on other interfaces should \#include those
interface files.  An implemention file which uses other modules should
\#include the .h file if it not already \#included by its own .h file.
\subsection{Common include files}These are all in the WWW/Implementation directory.
\begin{DL}{allow this much space}
\item[HTUtils.h
] Definitions of macros like PUBLIC and PRIVATE and YES and
NO. For use in all .c files.
\item[tcp.h
] All machine-dependent code for accesing TCP/IP channels and
files. Also defines some machine-dependent bits like SHORT\_NAMES.
\item[WWW.h
] Project-wide definition of constants, etc.
\end{DL}
(See also: Style in general , directory structure )





\section{Macros used in W3 code}These are macros which make it less
tedious to program in portable C.
 They are defined in HTUtils.h .
See Language features .
\subsection{ARGS1}Generates the format parameter list
for a function heading. Expands to
either an ANSI or non-ANSI argument
declaration list. Note in order to
do this, it has to take one argument
for the type and one for the argument
name. This is messy but necessary.
See example, also NOARGS, ARGSn,
PARAMS .
\subsection{ARGSn }As ARGS1 , macros ARGS2, ARGS3 etc
up to ARGS9 generate arguments lists
for function headings with different
numbers of arguments. See also NOARGS,
PARAMS .\par 
These should be used for private
function definitions.  If the function
is PUBLIC (not static) then there
will already be a function prototype
in the header file, so a K\&R style
function definition may be used instead
of ARG
\subsection{CONST}This is used instead of the keyword
"const" which does not exist in K\&R
C. It expands to const when using
ANSI C, otherwise nothing.
\subsection{NOARGS}Generates  the argument list for
a function header with no arguments..
See also ARGSn, NOPARAMS.
\subsection{NOPARAMS}This is used to generate the formal
parameter list in a function declaration
having no parameters. It expands
to (void) for ANSI C and () for non-ANSI.
See also: PARAMS  
\subsection{PARAMS}Define formal parameter list in function
declaration. The  normal ANSI function
header is given enclosed in DOUBLE
parentheses.  This causes the whole
list to be replaced with just ()
when a non-ANSI compiler is used.
See also: NOPARAMS
\subsection{PRIVATE}This expands to "static".  It  is
used in a function or variable declaration
to signify that the function is private
to the module, rather than public
(the default).  Avoids the confusion
in C between "static" used in this
sense, and used to declare storage
variables within blocks as static
as opposed to automatic.
\subsection{PUBLIC}The alternative to PRIVATE. expands
to nothing.  One or other of PRIVATE
or PUBLIC should be used to ensure
that the programmer has thought about
it.   This prevents unnecessry accidental
public definitions which may later
clash with other people's routines.	
\subsection{StrAllocCopy}This is a safe string assignment
function.   It takes as arguments
two pointers. If the first is non-zero,
it frees the block it points to.
It then allocates a block of size
sufficient for the zero-terminated
string pointed to by the second,
and assigns the first pointer to
point to that block. Implemented
nowadays in terms of a function.
Note that unlike the function, StrAllocCopy
takes its first pointer by name not
address (p, not ).\par 
(Part of style guide )
Tim BL






\section{Use of CVS}See also:
\begin{itemize}
\item History of introducing CVS in WWW
code management
\item Short Description of CVS
\item CVS Manual , commands
\end{itemize}
\subsection{WWW installation}The directory CVSROOT is where CVS
stores its bookkeeping files.\par 
The directory CVSRepository is where
CVS stores the sources in the RCS
format, i.e. one file for all versions
and branches of each source file.\par 
Please do not touch CVSROOT nor CVSRepository,
they are to be maintained by use
of CVS commands only.
\subsection{Your .cshrc file}Code management in WWW is done with
tools to be found in the directory
hypertext/WWW/CVS-RCS.\par 
The CVS repository for product xxx
(xxx=Daemon, Library, LineMode, etc)
is in WWW/xxx/Repository. Set envirnment
variables to point to the repository
and binary directories, for example:
\begin{verbatim}		setenv RCSBIN  $(HOME)/hypertext/WWW/CVS-RCS/next
		setenv PATH ( $PATH $RCSBIN )
		setenv CVSROOT $(HOME)/hypertext/WWW/CVS
		setenv CVSREAD YES

\end{verbatim}
You must also be a member of group
www (gid=69) and have your umask
set so that other group members will
be able to write to files you create:
\begin{verbatim}		umask 2

\end{verbatim}

\subsection{Changing a module}This assumes you have NFS access
to the WWW source tree.
\subsubsection{Get the source}First of all, make yourself a working
directory to be equivalent to "WWW"
in the main tree. Call it WWW somewhere
else, or WWW-joe for example. In
that directory, if (say) you want
to develop the Library code, do
\begin{verbatim}			cvs get Library

\end{verbatim}
This will build you the sources.
Alternatives are Line Mode and Daemon
.
\begin{itemize}
\item Work on the sources.
\item Test them.
\end{itemize}
\subsubsection{Synchronise with other mods}Pick up any changes others have made
using, in the Library/Implementation
directory, the command
\begin{verbatim}		cvs update

\end{verbatim}

\subsubsection{Fix clashes}It is possible but surprisingly unlikely
that someone else has been changing
the same part of the same file and
RCS can't figure out what the result
should be.  In this case, the file
is flagged with big marks in it and
a copy of both orginal files are
left in your directory.  Figure out
what to do about it to combine your
mods with the other guy's before
proceeding.
\subsubsection{Commit your work}
\begin{verbatim}		cvs commit -m "Message describing changes and tested status"

\end{verbatim}
while in the same (Implementation)
directory.  Your work will now be
picked up by others working on the
project.
\subsection{Setting up a new module}If I remember rightly the sequence
was to make a new subproduct xxx
as follows:-
\begin{verbatim}		cd $CVSROOT/CVSROOT

\end{verbatim}
Modify the "modules/modules" file
under that directory to add your
module just like the others
\begin{verbatim}		cvs commit modules

\end{verbatim}
Under WWW, make a directories WWW/xxx
and WWW/Implementation.
\begin{verbatim}		mkdir WWW/xxx
		mkdir WWW/xxx/implementation
		cd WWW/xxx/Implementation

\end{verbatim}
Put the files in here $--$ actually
they could be anywhere. Make sure
the current directory has exactly
and only the files you want to import.
CVS will run through subdirectories
recusively ok.
\begin{verbatim}		cvs import  xxx/Repository vendortag start

\end{verbatim}
Note that the repository is relative
to CVSROOT, not the pwd!!.  The vendortag
is for teh whole branch of the product,
the release tag (start) anything
but having no dots etc.
\begin{verbatim}		cd ../..       		(ie back up to WWW)
		cvs get xxx
		cd xxx/Implementation

\end{verbatim}

\subsection{CVS manual}The CVS and RCS manuals are in the
web.\par 
(Note: Terry Hung introduced it at
SLAC, but I believe we got it from
the "standard" sources: prep.ai.mit.edu.)\par 
 RC

\end{document}
