Re: Whois++ constraints

[Peter Deutsch <[e-mail]>]

g''day Mark,

Just a quick comment on something that went by a couple of
days ago..

[ You wrote: ]
.  .  .
>      > The other problem that should be addressed is incomplete
>      > specifications. For example what does the following mean?
>      >
>      >         attribute=sn
> 
>      I'm not sure I see the problem. This is just a search for
>      all records with an attribute "sn". It's conceivable there
>      are some, if not the server returns zero hits (or am I
>      missing something?).
> 
> Well if that's what you want to do then I will make my server do that
> (it will smash into my DSA's search limit pretty quickly though).

I may be exposing my ignorance here, but I assume "sn" is
something special in X.500 that would indicate that it
turns up a gazillion times? If so, it should still be
handled by the default response mechanism, which specifies
a low-output default when there is a large number of
responses. The current placeholder in the doc specify a
SUMMARY response if there are more than ten hits, unless
there is an overriding global constraint.

We could also think about allowing each server to specify
its own particular MAXHITS value as part of the response
to the CONSTRAINTS command (which is used to list valid
constraints for a particular server). If any MAXHITS
larger than this is specified, I would assume an
appropriate WARNING should be generated along with the
response, assuming it mattered.


> I assume this also applies to the queries
>         template=person
>         value=prior

I would think so, and again I would think each case would
be adequately handled by the default response mechanism.



				- peterd

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Peter Deutsch,                                       [e-mail]
President,                                        [phone]  (phone)
Bunyip Information Systems Inc.                    [phone]  (fax)

  "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"
           (- with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke, who almost got it right...)
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