This discussion is moving very slowly, in fact not
at all. The following is for purposes of moving it along.
Please look at the following XML fragment, an
example of how a server could provide a description of its search response,
corresponding to SRU 1.2:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<response>
<abstractElements>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>version</abstractName>
<actualName>
version</actualName>
<occurrence>1</occurrence>
<xpath>/version</xpath>
<value>"1.2"</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>numberOfItems</abstractName>
<actualName>
numberOfRecords</actualName>
<occurrence>1</occurrence>
<xpath>/numberOfRecords</xpath>
<value>positiveInteger</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>resultSetId</abstractName>
<actualName>
resultSetId</actualName>
<occurrence>0-1</occurrence>
<xpath>/resultSetId</xpath>
<value>string</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>resultSetIdleTime</abstractName>
<actualName>resultSetIdleTime</actualName>
<occurrence>0-1</occurrence>
<xpath>/resultSetIdleTime</xpath>
<value>integer</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>items</abstractName>
<actualName>records</actualName>
<occurrence>0-1</occurrence>
<xpath>/records</xpath>
<value>structured</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>nextPosition</abstractName>
<actualName>nextRecordPosition</actualName>
<occurrence>0-1</occurrence>
<xpath>/nextRecordPosition</xpath>
<value>positiveInteger</value>
</element>
<!--
-->
<element>
<abstractName>diagnostics</abstractName>
<actualName>diagnostics</actualName>
<occurrence>0-1</occurrence>
<xpath>/diagnostics</xpath>
<value>structured</value>
</element>
<structure
element="records">
<subElement>
<actualName>recordSchema</actualName>
<occurrence>1</occurrence>
<value>string</value>
</subElement>
<subElement>
......
<subElement>
</element>
.......
</structure>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Question.
Any elements that don't have an abstract name, I
don't understand how the client will discover anything about them.
This applies not just to top level elements but also to subelements. So
for example, the element <records> is an abstract parameter but the APD
says nothing about its structure. So where the description language describes
the subelement recordSchema, how is the client supposed to know the its
semantics.
It seems to me that we need to define abstract
elements for these subelements, for example recordSchema. (We have
recordSchema as an abstract parameter for the request, but I'm talking about
recordSchema as an element in the response.) Another example is the
<record> element (as opposed to the <records> element.
It seems this would need to be distinguished in the APD with a corresponding
abstract element, in this case "item" (as opposed to "items").
Please comment.
--Ray
----- Original Message -----
From:
Ray Denenberg, Library of
Congress
To:
Cc: Ashley Sanders
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:22
AM
Subject: description language
SWS Committee Members --
We need redirect our efforts towards the
description language; as we said at Thurday's call, aside from Janifer
and me, all members should focus attention on this. (Meanwhile Janifer
and I will work on the openSearch binding and I will work on getting the other
documents ready for release).
Ralph - you weren't at the call Thursday so we
have volunteered you to work on this. Larry and Rob agreed to join in
the effort. So this means Ashley, Ralph, Larry,
and Rob. Matthew -- would you be able to
help with this?
To reiterate what we discussed at the call: the
descriptive language needs to describe both an arbitrary sever and one that
supports, for example, SRU 1.2. The current draft treats arbitrary servers
only. The language needs to be powerful and descriptive enough that if a
server supports, for example, SRU 1.2, it can completely describe itself,
without ever saying that it supports SRU 1.2. If a server supports
openSearch it needs to be able to describe that via the description language,
that is, our description language needs to be compatible with the
openSearch description language.
Could one of you volunteer to quickly draft
up a document for discussion that treats both SRU 1.2 and
openSearch?
Any other observations or comments about
this?
--Ray
