Re: Issue 71: Additional actors

* Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net> [2001-08-30 15:39-0700]
> The working group should discuss the utility of adding 'None' to SOAP
> Version 1.2, using the Abstract Model definition as a proposal. 
> 
> [In practice, everyone could define their own URI for 'None', and it
> would be functional, because its purpose - not matching - would be
> served. However, there may be some utility in settling on a normal
> value for 'do not process me.']

I think that it could be useful, and the cost of this is pretty low:

  A SOAP node MUST NOT act in the role of the special SOAP actor named
  <http://www.w3.org/2001/08/soap-envelope/actor/none>. This value can
  be used to tag blocks that must not be processed by any SOAP actor.

> Additionally, the working group should consider whether there are
> other useful actors that should be standardised. While the actor
> attribute can contain any URI, and is therefore extensible, there may
> be value in identifying other generally useful actors.
> 
> For example, past discussions [1] have touched upon 'All', meaning
> that any SOAP node may process the block (or, if mustUnderstand is
> flagged, that all SOAP nodes must process the block).
> 
> [This has a semantic similar to 'next-and-reinsert', which may be
> useful for 'advisory' modules which would otherwise need a
> module-specific way to determine whether to reinsert or not. There
> may be better, albeit more verbose, ways to control reinsertion - a
> Module, for instance.]

I am more conflicted with this one. As you say, the same results can
be acheived using a combination of an actor value of
<http://www.w3.org/2001/06/soap-envelope/actor/next> and a module.
Moreover, it requires changing the processing model.

If we were to define such a value and behavior, we should make it
clear that blocks with actor values of
<http://www.w3.org/2001/06/soap-envelope/actor/next> can be reinserted
to get the same effect.

However, it wouldn't shock me to leave that task to people defining
modules.

> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-protocol-wg/2001Apr/0088.html
>     (I have seen this elsewhere, but this was all that I could find
>     presently, and is, alas, Member-confidential.)
-- 
Hugo Haas - W3C
mailto:hugo@w3.org - http://www.w3.org/People/Hugo/ - tel:+1-617-452-2092

Received on Friday, 31 August 2001 18:23:30 UTC