Draft 8 says this about ordinal costs:
5.1.2.2. Cost Mode: ordinal
This Cost Mode is indicated by the string ¹ordinal¹. This mode
indicates that the costs values to a set of Destination Network
Locations from a particular Source Network Location are a ranking,
with lower values indicating a higher preference.
But does that mean ordinals MUST be the integers 1, 2, 3, etc? Or can they
be any non-negative values, and lower means higher rank?
My concern is that a server might assume the latter. Then for simplicity,
if a client asks for "ordinal" costs, the server could just return the
numerical costs, with mode declared as "ordinal."
But a client might assume "ordinal" always means 1,2,3..., and might
search through the response to find the best cost -- which must be "1",
obviously.
So I think the protocol spec should say either
(a) Ordinals can be any non-negative values; they need not be the integers
1, 2, 3, ....
or else explicitly require
(b) Ordinals must be the integers 1, 2, 3, ....
I prefer (a) because it's simpler for the server, and because with (b),
we'd then have to define how to handle ties. Eg, is it "1,1,2", or
"1,1,3", or "1,2,3"? (Last means "ties not allowed").
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Draft 8 says this about the parameters for the endpoint property service:
7.7.4.1.3. Input Parameters
object {
EndpointProperty properties<0..*>;
TypedEndpointAddr endpoints<0..*>;
} ReqEndpointProp;
I assume "properties<0..*>" means the property names are optional. In that
case should the server return all props for those endpoints? Or is that an
error?
I believe "endpoints<0..*>" is a typo, and should be "endpoints<1..*>".
- Bill Roome
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