SRU 2.0 Draft: Language re resulSetTTL/resultSetIdleTime

["Hammond, Tony" <t.hammond@nature.com>]

Hi:

I just wanted to flag a rather difficult section (for us) in the SRU 2.0
draft. We had problems with this first time around, and are having problems
again as we are preparing a patch release.

The language could really benefit from some simplification. I'm still a
little unclear why the request and the response parameters even have
different names.

Maybe there's a subtle point being made here - but it's hurting our heads
trying to arrive at it.

Cheers,

Tony

==
6.5    resultSetTTL, and resultSetIdleTime

The client may request, via parameter resultSetTTL, that the server maintain
the result set to be created for a specified period of time (in seconds).
The server may choose not to fulfill this request, and may respond with a
different value, via the response element resultSetIdleTime.

The response element <resultSetIdleTime> is a good-faith estimate by the
server of the idle time, in seconds. That is, the server projects (but does
not guarantee) that the result set will remain available and unchanged (both
in content and order) until there is a period of inactivity exceeding this
idle time. The idle time must be a positive integer, and should not be so
small that a client cannot realistically reference the result set again. If
the server does not intend that the result set be referenced, it should omit
the result set identifier in the response.

<resultSetIdleTime> is independent (from a protocol point of view) of
resultSetTTL. It may be less-than, equal-to, or greater-than resultSetTTL,
and may be supplied or omitted regardless of whether resultSetTTL is
supplied or omitted.
==


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