On Mon, 15 Apr 2013, David Strauss wrote:

> Whether that's important depends on how much cURL is (1) a library that
> happens to support multiple URL-based protocols versus (2) a library that
> abstracts the differences between protocols when possible.

Nothing is a simple black or white of course...

libcurl doesn't just "happen" to support multiple URL-based protocols and we
try to abstract protocol differences between protocols when possible (and
sensible). But the fact that we abstract protocol differences only mean that
we do this among the protocols we support...

> If it's (2), then we'd be missing an opportunity to make libcurl-based
> clients more portable between the supported protocols. That is, we could
> make it possible for libcurl clients to support FTP(S), SFTP, and WebDAV
> PROPFIND without any code specific to those protocols.

We already support that for FTP(S) and SFTP. We can't easily add WebDAV to get
the same support anyway since it doesn't have a URL syntax for it. And HTTP is
not WebDAV. (And I don't think protocols on top of HTTP belong in libcurl, as
I actually added to the FAQ already 12 years ago...)

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se
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