Re: [ws-rx] Issue 25 - form of seqAck when RMD has received no message

[Christopher B Ferris <chrisfer@us.ibm.com>]

I'm not sure I would agree that a Nack of 1 says "I haven't got any 
messages". It only says:
I haven't got message number 1.

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
STSM, Emerging e-business Industry Architecture
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
blog: http://webpages.charter.net/chrisfer/blog.html
phone: +1 508 377 9295

"Jorgen Thelin" <jthelin@microsoft.com> wrote on 09/22/2005 10:09:56 AM:

> I?d like to propose an alternate resolution for issue 25.
> 
> In the meeting yesterday, we discussed issue 25 and the group expressed 
its opinion that they 
> preferred a definite statement to be made in this boundary case of no 
messages received yet.
> 
> The remaining proposal being considered last night was to send ?Ack 
0..0? for the case where no 
> messages have been received.
> 
> <wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement 
xmlns:wsrm="http://docs.oasis-open.org/whatever";>
> <wsrm:Identifier>http://example.org/mysequence/1234</wsrm:Identifier>
>         <wsrm:AcknowledgementRange Upper="0" Lower="0">
> </wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement>
> 
> My intellectual concerns with this approach are that we are making an 
incorrect statement ? we are
> acknowledging receipt of a message [#0] that (a) we haven?t actually 
received, (b) doesn?t 
> actually exist, and (c) will never be sent
> 
> My practical concerns with this approach are that I fear this change may 
cause a large ripple 
> effect on implementations. 
> I suspect implementations will need to change to explicitly recognize 
and exclude / ignore the 
> dummy message #0 anywhere they use a sequence range (although I haven?t 
actually checked into the 
> details yet). 
> Also changing the schema to say #0 is in the message number range makes 
it harder to do effective 
> validation of message content on the wire (should you wish to do that) ? 
specifically is Ack 0..10
> valid or just Ack 0..0?
> 
> I believe we already have existing features of the RM spec that can be 
used to solve this problem 
> and make a definite but correct statement to handle this boundary 
condition ? We can assert ?I?m 
> still waiting for you to send me the first message? ? eg. ?Nack 1?
> 
> <wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement 
xmlns:wsrm="http://docs.oasis-open.org/whatever";>
> <wsrm:Identifier>http://example.org/mysequence/1234</wsrm:Identifier>
>         <wsrm:Nack>1</wsrm:Nack>
> </wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement>
> 
> The advantages of this approach are:
> 
> 1. It makes a definite statement rather than relying on the absence of a 
statement to convey meaning
> 2. The statement made is accurate ? ?I haven?t received message #1?
> 3. We don?t need to change the message number range to accommodate this 
boundary condition ? the 
> schema can show the real 1..unbounded condition to allow better 
validation of on-the-wire messages
> 4. We don?t need to introduce and document the concept of the fictitious 
?Message #0? and explain 
> where and when it is valid to use that message number
> 5. I _suspect_ the impact on existing implementation will be less by not 
introducing lots of 
> special-case handling code
> 6. We are re-using existing functionality in the spec rather than 
introducing new functionality to
> handle special cases ? which should ultimately lead to fewer code paths 
and a smaller surface area.
> 7. This approach is basically backward compatible with exiting spec 
versions (both syntactically 
> and semantically) ? it represents a clarification for this boundary case 
rather than introducing 
> completely new functionality.
> 
> 
> So I propose the following resolution for Issue 25
> Recommend that an RMD be required to respond with a 
SequenceAcknowledgement element containing a 
> Nack child element with content ?1? to signify that the first message 
has not yet been received 
> for a given Sequence. e.g. 
> <wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement 
xmlns:wsrm="http://docs.oasis-open.org/whatever";>
> <wsrm:Identifier>http://example.org/mysequence/1234</wsrm:Identifier>
>         <wsrm:Nack>1</wsrm:Nack>
> </wsrm:SequenceAcknowledgement>
>