> In general we provide a standard in which a client requests A and gets
> A or a diagnostic. I prefer the server to provide A or a diagnostic plus
> B, where B is not just "doing their best to provide a useful answer"

But as Matthew has pointed out, you can't get a diagnostic plus B as there
isn't space for a 'surrogate' diagnostic and a record.

> In the xPath discussion A means "records conform the specified xPath"
> and B means "short DC records". With or without xPath I would like the
> availability of short records (like brief in Z39.50) to be returned on
> request or in combination with an diagnostic when a requested schema is
> not available. I would like to postpone the discussion on "what is a
> short DC record?".

So what you really want (what you really really want) is more [meta]data
in the surrogate diagnostic, so even though it is a diagnostic, it's got
some information about the record it's standing in for?

I'm not completely adverse to such a proposal, but the fields would need
to be nailed down as to exactly what can be returned. I would think
unique record id, title, author, date would be sufficient for most
purposes.

This wouldn't apply to just xPath surrogates, but could be used for a lot
of them. If you know there was a record there and it has subsequently
been deleted, chances are good that you can at least give a docid.

Rob

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