Discussion of the VOSpace 1.0 specification Document

This is a discussion page for the VOSpace-1.0 service specification document.

This is somewhere where we can post proposals and to enable interested parties to discuss the different versions.

For each version there is a Change request section - please add to this and vote on other suggestions

• +1 if you agree
• -1 if you disagree
• 0 if you have no particular preference

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Version 0.21

• vospace-0.21.doc

This document was produced as a result of the discussions that occured at the Victoria Interop meeting.

Change Requests

Mandate and define at least one transport protocol

without this a compliant VOSpace will not be able to transfer data to another compliant VOSpace.

I recommend http be mandatory.

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Specify as optional a small list of well known transport protocols

so that at least implementations will do the same thing for common protocols - this list to include

• ftp
• gridftp

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Specify the key names and meanings for a small group of "essential" property keys

The minimum set which I would say we need mandatory names are

• vos.Owner
• vos.ModificationDate
• vos.Size
• vos.MimeType

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Clarify the use of the Format parameter in some calls

I believe that the original intention of Format was to specify a possible transformation of the data (mainly on export of table data from RDBMS based stores). In the current version of the document it reads as if this parameter is merely a description of the data - in which case mime-type suffices. In addition I am not sure if this parameter has any meaning for import operations.

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Change "exception" to "fault"

The document uses the term exception for the "faults" rather than "fault"

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Consider adding an optional identifier list to the parameters for ListNodes

This would allow the client to specifly a subset of the VOSpace to be listed - in effect the behaviour would be similar to the "ls" command in unix.

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Reconsider getNodeProperties and setNodeProperties

the naming of these operations makes them appear as a pair, where in fact they are not - you get a Node out of the getNodeProperties and have to put a PropertyPairList into the setNodeProperties - If the change to ListNodes were made as above, then getNodeProperties would be redundant anyway.

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1

Semantics not clear for setNodeProperties

It is not clear

• how to delete a property - does a null value of the property pair denote this?
• does the whole set of node properties given as an argument replace the whole set for the node, or is a union operation performed.
• interaction with the "read-only" properties in these scenarios...

Votes

name	vote	comment
PaulHarrison	+1