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Technical issues as I go through action items...
First, my apologies that the speeded-up schedule agreed to on Tuesday is
not coming true. While I strive to meet your wishes, I am (obviously)
falling back to the previous publication schedule.
As I finish up on the action items, I keep coming back to section 4.4.1,
"Attribute: Response@replyPattern". I am unsure what it is trying to say.
Specific questions for the group:
1. This attribute value is difficult to choose when the published
RM-Replies relate to messages with varying RM-Reply Patterns. Only for
an underlying response to a message with the Response RM-Reply Pattern,
is the choice clear. For the other RM-Reply Patterns, which may
"bundle" information about multiple Reliable Messages, how should this
value be chosen? As one possibility, must all described messages have
arrived using the same RM-Reply Pattern (seems a bit restrictive)?
I note that the ReplyPattern agreement item has message scope, meaning
it may change "randomly" even within a group.
A potential confusion may have existed between the implied(??) reply
pattern when responding to a PollRequest versus the reply pattern of the
queried Reliable Message(s). This case is already covered since the
Response@replyPattern value clearly refers to the reply pattern of the
Reliable Message and not the most recent incoming message.
The most obvious problems arise when responding to a "general status
query" PollRequest asking about Reliable Messages with varying RM-Reply
Patterns but this is not the only cause for confusion. More generally,
the Receiving RMP is allowed to supply information about additional
messages if it so chooses. (At least, no current restrictions prevent
this.) For example, a single Callback publication may optionally
include additional information about Reliable Messages which arrived
with other RM-Reply Patterns (and which the Receiving RMP "somehow"
knows were from the same Sending RMP). A single response to a
PollRequest may do the same, regardless of the number of RM-Reply
Patterns relevant to the Reliable Messages identified in the
PollRequest. (This is also true for the underlying response to a
Response RM-Reply Pattern Reliable Message but the "primary" message and
therefore @replyPattern value is clear in that case and that case
alone.)
2. The restrictions identified in the final two bullets prevent sending
additional information about other singleton (no SequenceNum) messages
when responding to a message received as part of a sequenced group. The
SequenceReplies element must be first in this case and only additional
SequenceReplies elements are allowed according to the specification and
the schema. In the opposite case, a NonSequenceReply element must be
first and may be followed with additional NonSequenceReply and / or
SequenceReplies elements (though never mixed according to our schema).
Was this the intent? Or, should the schema look more like the following
DTD?
( NonSequenceReply | SequenceReplies )+
rather than the current
( NonSequenceReply*, SequenceReplies* )
Yes, the "1 or more" part is enforced only in the specification at the
moment...
3. If this is covered in an action item I missed, please let me know!
thanx,
doug
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