Is there consideration of creating a microformat[1] for SRU results?  That way, if Tony wanted to output xhtml /and/ there was a valid representation of SRU available (and parseable) in the document, both sides could win.

It would be a rather cool feature and would eliminate the need for multiple interfaces by vendors.

[1] http://microformats.org

-Ross.

On 4/26/06, Ashley Sanders <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Ray,

> You're mixing schema of response with schema of records.  You certainly
> could returns records in XHTML, but you can't return the response in XHTML
> (and be SRU conformant.)

Quite right. I think my brain must have gone awol yesterday.

I was looking at XHTML Modularization the other day:

     http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-modularization/

and was wondering if this does offer a way for a protocol
such as SRU to return a response as XHTML? A quote
from the page at the above url:

"Modularization also allows for the extension of XHTML's layout and
presentation capabilities, using the extensibility of XML, without
breaking the XHTML standard. This development path provides a stable,
useful, and implementable framework for content developers and
publishers to manage the rapid pace of technological change on the Web."

Another quote from elsewhere:

"Add extensions to XHTML, using XML, without breaking the XHTML
standard."

Which sounds to me like you can return something as XHTML and
include in it all the extra info needed to maintain the
SRU protocol and without clients having to screen scrape to get
at the data. Though I guess the result would be a radically
different protocol, unless XHTML Modularization is SOAP
compatible?

Does anyone know much about XHTML Modularization? Could this allow
the development of a protocol that can satisfy both a human and
machine user?

Ashley.
--
Ashley Sanders               [log in to unmask]
Copac http://copac.ac.uk A MIMAS Service funded by JISC