3. Terminology
This section defines key terms used in the WebDAV specification.
URI/URL
URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) and URL (Uniform Resource Locator), respectively. These terms (and the distinction between them) are defined in [RFC3986].
URI/URL Mapping
A relation between an absolute URI and a resource. Since a resource can represent items that are not network retrievable, as well as those that are, it is possible for a resource to have zero, one, or many URI mappings. Mapping a resource to an "http" scheme URI makes it possible to submit HTTP protocol requests to the resource using the URI.
Path Segment
Informally, the characters found between slashes ("/") in a URI. Formally, as defined in Section 3.3 of [RFC3986].
Collection
Informally, a resource that also acts as a container of references to child resources. Formally, a resource that contains a set of mappings between path segments and resources and meets the requirements defined in Section 5.
Internal Member (of a Collection)
Informally, a child resource of a collection. Formally, a resource referenced by a path segment mapping contained in the collection.
Internal Member URL (of a Collection)
A URL of an internal member, consisting of the URL of the collection (including trailing slash) plus the path segment identifying the internal member.
Member (of a Collection)
Informally, a "descendant" of a collection. Formally, an internal member of the collection, or, recursively, a member of an internal member.
Member URL (of a Collection)
A URL that is either an internal member URL of the collection itself, or is an internal member URL of a member of that collection.
Property
A name/value pair that contains descriptive information about a resource.
Live Property
A property whose semantics and syntax are enforced by the server. For example, the live property DAV:getcontentlength has its value, the length of the entity returned by a GET request, automatically calculated by the server.
Dead Property
A property whose semantics and syntax are not enforced by the server. The server only records the value of a dead property; the client is responsible for maintaining the consistency of the syntax and semantics of a dead property.
Principal
A distinct human or computational actor that initiates access to network resources.
State Token
A URI that represents a state of a resource. Lock tokens are the only state tokens defined in this specification.