error handling, was: Comments on search-00 draft

> From: www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Lisa Dusseault
> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 7:42 PM
> To: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de; www-webdav-dasl@w3.org
> Subject: Comments on search-00 draft
>
> ...
>
> b) Section 3.4 - extra response elements
>
> "In addition, the server MAY include DAV:response items in the reply where
> the DAV:href element contains a URI that is not a matching resource, e.g.
> that of a scope or the query arbiter. Each such response item MUST NOT
> contain a DAV:propstat element, and MUST contain a DAV:status element
> (unless no property was selected)."
>
> This text should include the information about what this provision is for,
> what purpose it serves?
>
> If I understand correctly (from later text) what purpose it
> serves (a place
> to hold information about the result set as a whole, e.g. to indicate that
> the result set is truncated), then I'd like to see this information
> marshalled in something that is NOT a <DAV:response> item.  In
> other words,
> the <DAV:response> items should correspond 1:1 to resources that
> matched the
> request, and nothing else.  This makes it simpler for clients to parse.
> Incidentally, it should also make it easier for clients that support
> previous versions of DASL, or clients that already do PROPFIND, to support
> the SEARCH response.

This text has been in before, so it *is* compatible with previous versions.
I don't really understand your statement about parsing the response, though.
Response elements for resources matching the request will always be reported
with no status element or a status element specifiying "200 OK".

That being said, I agree that error reporting is a mess, *because* it's
compatible to the original drafts. IMHO, the best solution would be to
completely rewrite it, re-using terminology and marshalling formats in
RFC3253. Feedback appreciated :-)

> What I propose is a new element such as
> <DAV:search-response-info> to appear
> in the response alongside all the <DAV:response> elements.  That
> element can
> still contain <DAV:href> and <DAV:status> elements if those are still
> useful.

Is there any requirement to marshall search results and error messages in
the same body? I'd rather prefer to keep those separated (*if* we are ging
to change the error formats).

> ...

Received on Friday, 29 March 2002 08:37:40 UTC