Processing which is not triggered by blocks?

In a conversation today (well, yesterday :)) the following issue came up,
which I would appreciate the group's input on.

Is it possible for a node (say an intermediary) to perform processing on a
SOAP message purely as a result of receiving the message, and not because
any particular blocks in the message are targeted at that node?

For instance, I can imagine a digital signature intermediary whose job is
simply to sign any message it receives and forward it, with an extra trailer
block containing the signature, to a fixed endpoint for which it acts as a
proxy.  Although our model for this sort of thing has traditionally
contained a header block targeted at the intermediary to trigger this
processing, it seems to me that there may be nothing which actually requires
such a block.

This would also make the case for the "fault on mustUnderstand blocks which
are targeted elsewhere" easier to explain, since the endpoint could simply
perform this (or any other custom) processing as a part of its standard way
of dealing with messages.

So, what do you think?  Is it OK for a processor/node to do work without
explicitly being told to do so by a block?  And if we think it is, should we
call that out in the processing model?

--Glen

Received on Saturday, 21 July 2001 02:06:37 UTC