On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:31:24 +0200, Feldhaus, Florian <florian.feldhaus@gwdg.de> wrote:
Hi,
once again I would like to reiterate the JSON rendering. First a short overview what Alexander and I think are the main points we should address: - remove all HTTP Rendering specific parts from the JSON rendering
Remember that an OCCI rendering (as currently specified) includes _both_ protocol and data format at the moment. I like the idea of having a common HTTP Protocol rendering spec which the JSON rendering could be built upon though. However, the current HTTP rendering doc lacks things like e.g. request parameters in URL which I would say is necessary to have a sane JSON rendering. Updating the HTTP rendering doc to have a clear separation between protocol and data format would address this of course.
- make the JSON rendering slim and remove everything which is not a representation of the OCCI model
You mean the pagination links etc? Or something else as well?
- consider using RFC 5988 "Web Linking" for collection information (e.g. index, next, previous,…)
Gary and I had an email conversation which resulted in a solution where all info necessary for pagination would end up in the request URL. I.e. basically eliminating the need for using special headers (such as RFC 5988). The request parameters to a collection simply allow you to specify the amount of resource instances you want returned either _before_ or _after_ a specific occi.core.id.
Examples: http://pastebin.com/ZK9Uf0K1 (Entities)
Nice, I like that you keep the "attributes" hash now ;) How do you render Link attributes for the links tied to an OCCI Resource?
To keep the mail short, a detailed discussion can be found in the attached text document.
Just picking out one thread:
resources and links should be represented differently. The entry "links" is unique for resources and the entries "target" and "source" are unique for links.
Sounds goods. So the top-level hash of the collection format would have one hash "resources" and another hash "links" then? I mean, we still have to cover the case where the client asks for "everything" at the top-level URL and thus gets both Resources and Links in the response.
In OCCI Core the attribute names should be changed from occi.core.source and occi.core.target to just source and target, as both are representing connections to other resources from within the OCCI model (similar to links in resources, or kind in entity).
occi.core.source and occi.core.target was named simply source/target up until just before the OCCI HTTP Rendering doc was published. The fundamental problem here is that we have two different sorts of "attributes". 1. Attributes as part of the OCCI Core model. These include both Entity.id, Entity.title, Resource.summary, Resource.links, Link.target, Link.source, etc 2. Attributes as exposed by an OCCI rendering. The HTTP Rendering exposes id, title, summary as attributes as well as target and source. However the Resource.links attribute is not exposed as an attribute... There is no clear distinction here which IMO leads to confusion. Also remember that a subclass of OCCI Link may have Link.target pointing at some arbitrary external object. regards, Ralf