- From: LeVan,Ralph <levan@oclc.org>
- Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 09:14:17 -0400
- To: "Z39.50 LISTSERV" <www-zig@w3.org>
I don't want yet another unsupported (or worse yet, profiled out) truncation attribute. Let's put Alan's suggested clarifications in and live with it. I always hated z39.58 anyway, so this just gives me another reason. :-) Thanks for sticking to your guns Alan! Ralph > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan Kent [mailto:ajk@MDS.RMIT.EDU.AU] > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 9:29 PM > To: Z39.50 LISTSERV > Subject: Re: CCL proposal (quotes) > > > On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 07:55:41AM -0400, Mark Reichert wrote: > > I knew I had it around somewhere. Z39.58-1992 is/was clear > on this matter. > > To me this means the documentation for the Z39.58 regexp attribute > already in Bib-1 is incomplete - the textual description of > the pattern > has ommitted the Z39.58 documented support for quotes for releasing. > > Note: I don't like \ to release things in a Z39.58 regexp. We have > a CCL parser as according to the now obsolete spec. Introducing \ > now would be a non-backwards compatible change to our implementation > that is not inline with Z39.58. (We actually allow users to enable > special \ processing as a preprocess phase to the CCL parsing to > allow UTF-8 etc sequences to be embedded into the CCL query. This > did not require a change to CCL - its a preprocess of user input > before its given to the CCL parser.) > > I therefore propose that the Z39.58 regexp attribute as currently > in Z39.50 be corrected to be made conformant with the CCL spec as > Mark quoted in has mail (that is, allow quotes in it). This seems > the semantically correct solution. > > Ralph for his non-Z39.58-conformant (but arguably more human friendly) > regexp definition can use a new attribute with a new definition. > Since almost no-one (we do!) supports the current Z39.58 regexp > attribute, introducing a new attribute would not be that much of > a problem would it? > > But I think its bad precedent to say "well this attribute was intended > to support this standard, but the standard was not very friendly so > we changed its meaning afterwards to be non-conformant." > > Note: I am not picking on Ralph here - at the end of the day it really > does not matter to me that much since almost no-one supports > the attribute > (at least that appears to be on this list). So I can change > our attribute > easily too, but trying to be objective I would say the current Z39.58 > regexp attribute appears to be in error with the spec (so fix it), > and if someone wants a new pattern, fine, introduce a new > pattern attribute > for the new pattern rather than change the existing definition. > I don't think personal likes and dislikes (including my own) should > influence the adoption of standards. > > Mind you, my objectivity is in question since I am probably the only > other person who has implemented the Z39.58 regexp attribute, > and Ralph's > proposed \ for releasing would cause me problems! :-) :-) :-) > > If a new 'Ralph' pattern was introduced, we would probably have a go > at supporting it in our server (it would be so similar to our existing > pattern support that it should not be too hard to add into > our server). > > Alan > > ps: What humans type in by the way does not have to directly > correspond > to what is sent in a regex. Ralph's client could always > convert a?45 or > a?4\5 automatically into a?4"5" for sending down the wire. >
Received on Wednesday, 8 May 2002 09:26:38 UTC