Sorry to 'Me Too', but ...
On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 17:34 +0000, Mike Taylor wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 11:54:09 -0500
> > From: Will Sexton <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > SRW/U specifies an optional 'numberOfRecords' sub-parameter in the
> > response for a scan operation. I'm wondering how best to aggregate
> > the 'numberOfRecords' data according to different fields.
> >
> > I can't find anything built into the specification that explicitly
> > allows this kind of kind of aggregation. Is it something one would
> > do with an 'extraTermData' extension, similar to the 'requestedTerm'
> > example?
>
> Yes, precisely.
Absolutely. This is exactly the scenario that extensions were designed
for.
As a strawman, you could have something like:
<term>
<value>fish</value>
<numberOfRecords>126</numberOfRecords>
...
<extraTermData>
<duke:termDivisions>
<duke:division>
<duke:identifier>Collection-Identifier-1</duke:identifier>
<duke:numberOfRecords>6</duke:numberOfRecords>
</duke:division>
<duke:division> ... </duke:division>
...
</duke:termDivisions>
</extraTermData>
</term>
> > Any advice is appreciated, including thoughts on the general
> > question of the advisability of hacking on the SRW/U spec to meet
> > local needs.
>
> Depends what you mean by "hacking on" the spec. You absolutely
> shouldn't _change_ anything in the spec for your local implementation;
> but it's totally reasonable to _add_ extensions within the extension
> framework. Positively encouraged, even.
My advice would be to come up with all of the use cases you want to
cover first. Then mock up some XML like the above and pitch it back
here if you want any comments :) Or, if you know all of the things you
want to do, write it up and we can help come up with a possible
extension. Then we can put it up on the list of registered extensions
and hopefully more people will implement it.
The one last thing to note is that the client software has to request
the use of the extension, the server can't arbitrarily decide to return
it. It's trivial to ask for (just put another param in the request), but
it has to be done.
Rob
--
Dr Robert Sanderson
Dept of Computer Science, University of Liverpool
Home: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~azaroth/
Cheshire: http://www.cheshire3.org/
|