On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:30:20 +0200, Matthew J. Dovey <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>> I'm writing a very "simple" SRU-server. I'm worried about the response
>> parameter "numberOfRecords". For me it would seem natural to request
>> for
>> the "numberOfRecords" only when you need it, fex. by
>> using "maximumRecords=0".
>
>A request for maximumRecords=0 is useful for when the client *only*
>wants a count, but the assumption is that numberOfRecords is always
>returned regardless of however many records are requested/returned.
>There is no need for the client to actually use this data (it could just
>ignore it), and intelligent servers may cache the count (and the result
>set) say keyed on the query term, rather than repeat the count (and
>query) should the client ask for a different set of records for the same
>query.
>
>There may be situations where a server cannot return an accurate count
>for whatever reason (e.g. too expensive, or in the case of relevance
>based text retrieval engines ala Google). In this case, it is suggested
>that you return an arbitrarily large value in the numberOfRecords.
>
>Matthew
>========================================================================

Thanks for your answers,

I'm sorry not having responded earlier, but I have been out of office for 
a couple of weeks. 
I suppose that I have to cope with the fact that the server shall always 
return the numberOfRecords of the whole record-set. Nevertheless I think 
that this is a lack of server-logic. Modern databases do usually have an 
effective way to do custom paging (limited pages) and then the need for 
the numberOfRecords of the whole record-set will always be a burden, and 
it will also be a burden for the server to conclude that an arbitrarily 
large value should be returned. I think that the best solution to this 
would be the possibility for the client to use a request-
parameter "numberOfRecords", and if used/filled by the client it would 
tell the server that it doesn't have to return the "numberOfRecords".
Yes, you do  usually want to know the (total) "numberOfRecords" requesting 
for the first limited page (although not necessarily), so I have to look 
at how to cache the count (and the query). For me it would have been much 
easier to forget about state/caching, but I don't think that it's a good 
solution to count the total "numberOfRecords" for every limited page. Is 
this server-logic a consequence of servers building/saving the whole 
result-set (of course in an internal effective way) although just a 
limited page should be returned? Comments appreciated.

 Regards RogerW :).