[business-transaction] PREPARE_INFERIORS

[Mark Little <mark_little@hp.com>]

When calling PREPARE_INFERIORS (CONFIRM_TRANSACTION), a list of inferior ids
is supplied. Now, if any of these inferiors is invalid, the spec. currently
says that the InvalidInferior FAULT is generated. However, that's all it
says. This leaves it open to implementation specific interpretation (the
list below is not meant to be complete):

(i) I could check all inferiors prior to issuing prepare on any of them and
only go ahead if all ids in the list are valid.

(ii) I could simply walk down the list and issue prepare and stop when I get
to an invalid id. However, what happens to the inferiors I haven't talked to
yet and what do I do with those I have.

(iii) I walk down the list and issue prepare and remember if I see any
invalid id. At the end of the list I return the appropriate FAULT.

(iv) modify the status-item field such that it is possible to identify which
id was invalid.

Now I have a preference as to which I think we should do, but the real
reason for this message is to try to get some agreement on a standard
approach that we can put in the specification. (BTW, I think (iv) would be a
useful enhancement anyway - if I send a list of 1000 inferior ids and only
one of them was invalid it would be good if I could get that id (or list
thereof) back on the fault message.)

Mark.

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Dr. Mark Little, Distinguished Engineer,
Transactions Architect, HP Arjuna Labs
Email: mark_little@hp.com
Phone: +44 191 2606216
Fax  : +44 191 2606250