> -----Original Message-----
> From: SRU (Search and Retrieve Via URL) Implementors
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Tony Hammond
> 
> I guess if that is the real position then we could support SRU URL in
and
> SRU XML out for power users, and SRU in and arbitrary XHTML out for
> regular end users in an MGX sort of way.

MXG (Metasearch XML Gateway) does not allow arbitrary XHTML either.
That's exactly the thing the metasearchers are trying to get away from.
They expect well-formed SRU responses so they can find the records in
the response easily and do something useful to them.  Returning HTML, or
even XHMTL, still leaves them screen scraping and holding their breaths
hoping you don't change the format of your output.


> Wouldn't that mean we could offer full SRU compliance for those who
could
> consume the SRU XML, and at least standardize the request half on an
SRU
> querystring?

For the metasearchers, the input part is the easy part.  They figure
your query grammar doesn't change nearly as often as your output.


> We are looking to achieve a reasonable middle ground here to at least
> rachet our search interface up towards some kind of standards
compliance.

But it sounds like you expect the customers for this service to be
humans at browsers, not applications.  The standards bring little value
to that arena.  The humans are flexible enough to find the box to stick
their one or two words into.

You can use CQL as the query grammar embedded inside your own unique
URL's and return arbitrary XHMTL.  But CQL wasn't designed to be a human
entered query grammar.  It does simple stuff well, but tricky stuff gets
tricky.

All-in-all, this sounds much more like OpenSearch than SRU or even MXG.

Ralph