WebDAV

WebDAV (shorthand for «Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning») is an extension of the standard HTTP protocol designed to make the web into a read/write medium, instead of the basically read-only medium that exists today. The theory is that directories and files can be shared—as both readable and writable objects—over the web. RFCs 2518 and 3253 describe the WebDAV/DeltaV extensions to HTTP, and are available (along with a lot of other useful information) at http://www.webdav.org/.

A number of operating system file browsers are already able to mount networked directories using WebDAV. On Win32, the Windows Explorer can browse what it calls WebFolders (which are just WebDAV-ready network locations) as if they were regular shared folders. Mac OS X also has this capability, as do the Nautilus and Konqueror browsers (under GNOME and KDE, respectively).

How does all of this apply to Subversion? The mod_dav_svn Apache module uses HTTP, extended by WebDAV and DeltaV, as one of its network protocols. Subversion uses mod_dav_svn to map between Subversion's versioning concepts and those of RFCs 2518 and 3253.

For a more thorough discussion of WebDAV, how it works, and how Subversion uses it, see Приложение B, WebDAV и автоматическое управление версиями. Among other things, that appendix discusses the degree to which Subversion adheres to the generic WebDAV specification, and how that affects interoperability with generic WebDAV clients.