[unclassified] Re: [moby] RE: [MOBY-dev] rfcf 11. RDF Agent

[Mark Wilkinson]

On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 00:50 +0100, Martin Senger wrote:

>    Okay. So far, so clear. How can I explicitly call the agent to me?

Yet to be decided... we'll make it an API call of some sort.  We're
still trying to get the agent to work so I need to focus on that
first :-)

 

>    This is done by the XML attribute 'lsid', correct?

correct.



>    Which means, for example, that the returned HTTP response should have
> Content-Type "x-application/rdf+xml" and Expires HTTP headers.
>    Also, strictly speaking, an LSID should resolve to the metadata
> describing this LSID, but in the case of using SignatureURL there is no
> guarantee that a service provider does not put into the same document
> metadata about more services.

This is a very good point, and I hadn't fully considered the
consequences of this v.v. having more than one service definition in the
metadata document.  Let's tease out what behaviour we want from this
part of the API before we make any further decisions.  

It seems to me that the objective is for the service provider to be able
to say things about their service that are not recorded in the Registry,
but are still available to the consumer through a predictable API.  We
accomplish this through both avenues (having only one SignatureRDF at
the URL or by having multiple concatenated SignatureRDF's at a single
URL), but you are 100% correct that it might be a more confusing
document to parse if the client is not expecting it.

Are there other reasons to chose one over the other?  I guess having a
proliferation of SignatureRDF's on the server-side is an unpleasant
thought also (though from a service providers perspective, it might be
easier to manage, since RDF isn't particularly human-readable anyway...)

?? other thoughts ??


>    I think that it would be also good if you can show an example of the
> WSDL with that binding, and instructions how clients should use such WSDL
> (which part they should take - my understanding is that the SignatureURL
> will be in the tag <http:address location="..." inside the <port...> tag).

That was what I had in mind, yes.  We'll certainly document everything
well once we have it set up the way we want it.


>  One more thing (not about API but about implementation) - and I think
> that Eddie mentioned it somewhere else, as well): In CSHL, we spoke about
> a special moby service that can be used for registering (and for
> retrieving) endpoints of service metadata created by the third-parties.
> Such service does not exist yet (nor its API) but if it exists (and if the
> registry is configured to use it), the registry should use it to put more
> metadata locations into returned WSDL. Please keep it in mind when you are
> implementing this part, so it can be easier updated when such service
> exists.

OK

Cheers!

M


-- 
"Ontologists do it with the edges!"

Mark Wilkinson
Asst. Professor
Dept. of Medical Genetics
University of British Columbia
PI in Bioinformatics
iCAPTURE Centre
St. Paul's Hospital
Rm. 166, 1081 Burrard St.
Vancouver, BC, V6Z 1Y6
tel: 604 682 2344 x62129
fax: 604 806 9274