> > Because I don't want to end up in a situation where I can't predict
> > the structure of the contents of an index because of different naming
> > policies.
> This has absolutely nothing to do with naming policies.
> There will be a table somewhere which defines the type-1 attribute
> combination for every index. That is the whole point of index sets: they
> define the place where the indexes are specified. That specification is the
> list of attributes.
But that table won't be machine readable. For every index set that anyone
creates, we'll need to add logic for index structure.
Secondly, that table may not exist if the underlying implementation isn't
Z39.50. I'm sure that Amazon would create indexes like 'actor' 'format'
'director' and so forth... Which don't have attribute combinations readily
available. Do we then create a Z39.50 attribute set to map them into?
I like string based index specifiers as opposed to numeric attribute
combinations. I do think that there needs to be some way of determining
structure without prior knowledge of the server however. Either in the
name or a field in the Explain record.
> > This is why I'd like either one index, or a limited set of names to
> > distinguish structure to append to the name given to the index.
> But if I define index "pooh" as being use=1016, structure=6, ... is there
> any problem? The name of the index is just a string. It has no implicit
> semantics.
Then how do we (being the client writers) interoperate without prior
knowledge of your index naming system? It's great if all people needed
was the DC or BATH index sets, but that's simply not the case. I can't
programmatically know anything about your indexes from their names.
If I get a request to search all of the SRW services on their 'title'
index how can I know which of your indexes I should search?
> You guys started that discussion while I was away. Is that the root of this
> problem?
It's definitely an issue which hasn't had the solution explained to me yet
:)
Rob
($5.02)
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