TAP-1.0 Erratum 5: VOTable usage in TAP

Author: Markus Demleitner

Date last changed: 2017-02-23

Date accepted: 2018-02-22

Rationale

The wording in TAP-1.0 in §~2.9 and §2.9.1 about the use of VOTable is somewhat inconsistent about the format of VOTable error documents. It is clear that §2.9 is discussing both successful and error outputs, and in the case of an error no TABLE element will normally be present, only one or more INFO elements. However, while the intention is clear from the fourth example in §2.9.1, it is not clear from the wording.

Erratum Content

This erratum removes the inconsistency by changing:

• first sentence in the third paragraph of Sec.~2.9 from

The VOTable must contain a RESOURCE element identified with the attribute
type="results", containing a single TABLE element with the results of the query.

to

The VOTable must contain a RESOURCE element identified with the attribute
type="results". In case of successful job execution, this must contain exactly one 
TABLE element with the results of the query. In case of job failure, the TABLE 
element may be absent.

and

• first paragraph of §2.9.1 from

The RESOURCE element must contain, before the TABLE element, an INFO 
element with attribute name="QUERY_STATUS". The value attribute must contain 
one of the following values:

to

The RESOURCE element must contain an INFO element with attribute 
name="QUERY_STATUS" indicating the success of the operation. For RESOURCE
elements that contain a TABLE element, this INFO element must appear lexically 
before the TABLE. The following values are defined for this INFO element's value attribute:

Impact Assessment

Since the wording changes introduced by this Erratum are only meant to better describe the usage of an existing recommendation (the VOTable one) inside the TAP-1.0 protocol, no effects on TAP-1.0 services or consuming applications are foreseen.

Note

This Erratum was previously part of the TAP1Err1 Errata Note (PDF former version). The content presented here started from §6 of that Note.

Erratum approved on 2018-02-22 by TCG, but last changes made as action deriving from that TCG tconf: removing unstable SVN reference and added formal author. -- MarcoMolinaro - 2018-02-23