[DAS2] Questions on the DAS2 spec

[Ed Erwin]

I recently re-read the document 
http://biodas.org/documents/das2/das2_protocol.html#overview

It is looking pretty good.  But there were areas that I didn't 
understand, and others that I want to comment on.  I'll post my 
questions/comments one-per-email to make discussion easier.

-

First issue: I'd like to clear-up the requirements for the base URL.

All URL examples begin something like this:

http://server/das/.....

Is it permissable for "server" to contain "/" characters?
Is it permissable to use "https://" instead of "http://"
Is it really required that the string "/das/" be part of the url?

It would be useful, mainly for testing purposes, to be able to run 
multiple DAS2 servers on a single IP address, like this:

http://netaffxdas.affymetrix.com/public/das/
https://netaffxdas.affymetrix.com/private/das/
http://netaffxdas.affymetrix.com/testing/das2/
http://netaffxdas.affymetrix.com:9091/testing/das/

Thus "server" needs to be able to include un-escaped "/" characters, and 
maybe even ":" for designating ports.  Maybe that was already intended, 
but there are no such examples given in the spec.

I'd rather replace all the URL examples with

http(s)://urlbase/...

where urlbase can contain "/" and does not necessarily have to include 
the string "/das/".  In particular, some places that already have a DAS1 
server running on "/das" may want to use "/das2" for any new server.


Cheers,
Ed