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On Sun, 25 May 2003, Adam Dickmeiss wrote:
> On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 11:02:10PM -0400, LeVan,Ralph wrote:

> > I am opposed to multi-database stuff.  As I understand it, the content
> > These sound like serious folks with specific requirements and a commitment
> > to serious code.  Make them do real z39.50.
> With SRW and HTTP keepalive the mechanics becomes equivalent.

Could you write up a quick summary of how this works and any
advantages/disadvantages?  I think it'd be really useful for the rest of
us, and for any new implementers.

> For SRW, we already have the notation of a database and is using
> the HTTP path. That has two drawbacks:
>   1) can only specify one resource.
>   2) is bound to HTTP (SOAP can operate on a varity of protocols)

The W in SRW is Web (or Web Service), after all, but it is true that SOAP
isn't dependant on HTTP as the protocol.  On the other hand, the database
is specified as a URI rather than an HTTP path, I thought ... if I had an
FTP protocol SOAP server, I could have a database at
  ftp://srw.o-r-g.org/pub/moo/
in much the same way as I could have it at
  http://srw.o-r-g.org:8080/l5r/

(Though that does bring up a question of modeling in Zeerex, I admit)
(SRF: Search/Retrieve over FTP? :))

I can see that Matthew's music searching database, which IIRC can't match
quickly enough to be able to respond before an http timeout, would benefit
from SOAP over email. But are there any SOAP libs for protocols other than
HTTP or possibly FTP?  Would it actually be useful to to decouple SRW from
http?  I don't see the other protocols being used, either with SRW or
really much else.

Rob

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