RelevantProtocols.html 4.77 KB
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  <TITLE>Protocols Related to HTTP</TITLE>
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<H1>
  HTTP Related Protocols
</H1>
<P>
This is a small sample of other Internet transfer protocols and information
representation protocols.
<H2>
  IMAP
</H2>
<P>
The <A HREF="ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2060.txt">Internet Message Access
Protocol, Version 4rev1 (IMAP4rev1)</A> allows a client to access and manipulate
electronic mail messages on a server. IMAP4rev1 permits manipulation of remote
message folders, called "mailboxes", in a way that is functionally equivalent
to local mailboxes. IMAP4rev1 also provides the capability for an offline
client to resynchronize with the server.
<P>
IMAP4rev1 includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming mailboxes;
checking for new messages; permanently removing messages; setting and clearing
flags; <A HREF="ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc822.txt">[RFC-822]</A> and
[<A HREF="ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2045.txt">MIME-IMB</A>] parsing;
searching; and selective fetching of message attributes, texts, and portions
thereof. Messages in IMAP4rev1 are accessed by the use of numbers. These
numbers are either message sequence numbers or unique identifiers.
<H2>
  MIME
</H2>
<P>
RFC 822 defines a message representation protocol which specifies considerable
detail about message headers, but which leaves the message content, or message
body, as flat ASCII text. <A HREF="rfc1341/0_TableOfContents.html">MIME</A>
redefines the format of message bodies to allow multi-part textual and
non-textual message bodies to be represented and exchanged without loss of
information. This is based on earlier work documented in RFC 934 and RFC
1049, but extends and revises that work. Because RFC 822 said so little about
message bodies, this document is largely orthogonal to (rather than a revision
of) RFC 822.
<H2>
  File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
</H2>
<P>
The <A HREF="rfc959/">file transfer protocol</A> 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
<A NAME="1" HREF="rfc959/">RFC 959</A> which includes material from many
previous RFCs. (See also: <A NAME="2" HREF="../Addressing/FileAddressing.html">
file address syntax</A> ). 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.
<H2>
  Network News Protocol
</H2>
<P>
The "<A HREF="rfc977/rfc977">Network News Transfer Protocol</A>" (NNTP) is
defined in <A NAME="3" HREF="rfc977/rfc977">RFC 977</A> 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<A NAME="4" HREF="rfc850/rfc850.html"> RFC 850, Standard for Interchange
of USENET Messages</A> by Mark Horton. This in turn refers to the
standard<A NAME="5" HREF="rfc822.txt"> RFC 822</A> 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.
<H2>
  Gopher
</H2>
<P>
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.
<H2>
  Z39.50
</H2>
<P>
With the use of the freeWAIS software from CNIDR, the W3 software now
accesses<A NAME="z24" HREF="../../Products/WAIS/Overview.html"> WAIS</A>
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
<A NAME="z23" HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Z39.50/Standards_documents">draft
standards documents</A> .
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<ADDRESS>
  <A HREF="../"><IMG BORDER="0" ALT="W3C" SRC="../Icons/WWW/w3c_home" WIDTH="72" HEIGHT="48"></A><BR>
  <A HREF="mailto:frystyk@w3.org">Henrik Frystyk Nielsen</A><BR>
  @(#) $Id: RelevantProtocols.html,v 1.11 1999/10/26 18:50:18 ylafon Exp $<BR>
</ADDRESS>
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