Why is the HTTP DELETE method not mentioned?

[YoucTagh]

When introducing the core aspects of negotiation for profiled representation, why is the HTTP DELETE method not mentioned?

Similar to the scenario of creating/updating a representation with a specific profile, one might want to delete the representation that uses a specific profile, an example request might be:

DELETE /document HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
Accept: text/turtle, application/rdf+xml
Accept-Profile: "http://example.org/shapes/shape-1" ; q=0.8 ,
                "http://example.org/shapes/shape-2" ; q=0.5
Connection: close

An alternative question might be: how do I delete a representation of a resource that uses a particular profile?

[RubenVerborgh]

Hi @YoucTagh,

DELETE works on the resource level; we should not use it to delete specific representations.

An alternative question might be: how do I delete a representation of a resource that uses a particular profile?

So a resource would never use a particular profile; a representation would.

However, one could assign URLs to specific representations (/document/reps/1 or /document.shape1.ttl), and then perhaps these could be modified. But that is out of scope for the current draft.

[YoucTagh]

Thanks for the clarification. In fact, the URL way of handling this situation is also described in the RFC 9110.

Relatively few resources allow the DELETE method -- its primary use is for remote authoring environments, where the user has some direction regarding its effect. For example, a resource that was previously created using a PUT request, or identified via the Location header field after a 201 (Created) response to a POST request, might allow a corresponding DELETE request to undo those actions. Similarly, custom user agent implementations that implement an authoring function, such as revision control clients using HTTP for remote operations, might use DELETE based on an assumption that the server's URI space has been crafted to correspond to a version repository

I am citing the RFC in case such a feature is added in a future draft.