Ok, but I don't agree with this being obvious:
"there doesn't seem to be a reason to introduce
an extension that says that you don't mind about the numberOfRecords."

If the client-program knows that the question will last  fex. twice as 
long if the server also counts (or tries to count) "numberOfRecords", 
shouldn't the client-program be able to tell the server that it wants a 
really fast answer and under these specific circumstances it is not 
interested in the numberOfRecords?

This could be the situation for very complex queries or when the server 
can't cache the client or when the server uses effective database-specific 
methods to retrive the sub-pages or.......
But you might be right, perhaps it's a trifle.... 

  Regards RogerW.


On Thu, 9 Aug 2007 12:39:49 +0200, Theo van Veen wrote:

>I'm not talking about keeping state. The numberOfRecords is returned in
>each response. I just want to say that when you return for example:
>
><srw:numberOfRecords>123</srw:numberOfRecords>  or
><srw:numberOfRecords>approximately 123</srw:numberOfRecords>   or
><srw:numberOfRecords>unknown</srw:numberOfRecords>
>
>there doesn't seem to be a reason to return a diagnostic or to introduce
>an extension that says that you don't mind about the numberOfRecords.
>
>Theo