statusReturns.

[Gary P Cole <Gary.P.Cole@Sun.COM>]

The 'status' operation can return either 1) the current state of the 
target operation (which is executing asynchronously) or 2) any results 
of the target operation.  The optional 'statusReturns' attribute of the 
StatusRequestType indicates whether the requestor wants the provider to 
return #1 or #2 above.  The value of  "statusReturns" must be either 
'status' or 'result'.

Have I stated it correctly up to this point?  If not, please correct 
me.  If so, hold on, because this is where I think it gets weird.

If the statusRequest#statusReturns='status', then the provider actually 
returns (in the SpmlResponse that is nested as 
statusResponse#currentResponse) one of 
{'success'||'failure'||'pending'}.  In other words, asking for 'status' 
gets you "result". 

If the statusRequest#statusReturns='result', then the provider actually 
returns (in the SpmlResponse that is nested as 
statusResponse#currentResponse) any output thus far produced by the 
target operation .  In other words, asking for 'result' gets you output. 

1) Am I the only one who finds this confusing?

2) Doesn't status always have to return the "result" attribute (in the 
SpmlResponse that is nested as statusResponse#currentResponse) since the 
"result" attribute is required?

3) Wouldn't it be simpler to have an optional attribute that asks the 
provider to return output?
Couldn't we replace 'statusReturns' with something like:
    <attribute name='returnOutput' type='xsd:boolean" use="optional" 
default="false"/>

gpc