WebDAV
WebDAV is an extension to the HTTP protocol. It is the basis for Apple's iDisk and Windows' Web Folders, standard features of Mac OS X and Windows XP. It is thus the easiest way for a server to make data available to a client machine without requiring that client software be installed first.
ZooLib provides a generic WebDAV server. Your application need only implement subclasses of ZNodeRep to represent nodes in your desired hierarchy. Standard subclasses of ZNodeRep let you lay one tree over another, or expose part of the server's file system to clients.
Frankly, WebDAV is an inelegant protocol. It puts some information in the URL, some in header lines, and some is encoded as XML in the body of requests and responses. But it has three sterling characteristics:
- It exists
- It works
- It's usable out of the box on Mac, Windows and many flavors of UNIX
