Synchronous execution was mentioned in today's meeting. I read through that section of the spec recently, to see if it would be useful in the emails I was writing. My interpretation of what the spec says is different from what people seemed to be saying in the meeting today.
The spec says "When a provider creates an automation request, it can also include an automation result, which might or might not yet be finished at the point in time when the provider responds to the create request". To me this sounds like "when a consumer POSTs a new automation request to a creation factory, the HTTP RDF response can contain a description of the automation result in addition to the description of the automation request". In the call it was mentioned that the request and result can be the same resource. While this is not incompatible with what is said in the spec, and would certainly fulfil the sentence above, it is not exactly what is said. (I was aware of the possibility of the same resource being of both types when I first read the spec, but dismissed it as it is not mentioned explicitly.) For example, it sounds like the HTTP response could be: <rdf:RDF> <oslc_auto:AutomationRequest rdf:about="http://example.com/autoRequests/1 "> ... </oslc_auto:AutomationRequest> <oslc_auto:AutomationResult rdf:about="http://example.com/autoResults/1";> <oslc_auto:producedByAutomationRequest rdf:resource="http://example.com/autoRequests/1"; /> ... </oslc_auto:AutomationResult> </rdf:RDF> Is this as intended? Secondly, if the response is of the form mentioned in the meeting today (where the request and result are the same resource): <rdf:RDF> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.com/autoResources/1";> <rdf:rtpe rdf:resource="oslc_auto:AutomationRequest"/> <rdf:rtpe rdf:resource="oslc_auto:AutomationResult"/> <oslc_auto:producedByAutomationRequest rdf:resource="http://example.com/autoResources/1"; /> <oslc_auto:state rdf:resource="oslc_auto:complete" /> ... </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF> If the state is "complete" straight away (i.e. the action was synchronous) then am I correct in interpreting that the URI of that resource never needs to be able to return it? i.e. it can always return a 404? (Because before the HTTP response is returned the consumer is not aware of the URI so cannot look it up before the result has completed, at which time the provider is free to delete it?) If that is true, then is the URI still needed in the RDF in order to have a value to set for the oslc_auto:producedByAutomationRequest property, or if an automation request also has an rdf:type property set to oslc_auto:AutomationResult, is it valid to assume that that is the result for that request? (I can't see it being any other result, but the spec doesn't define that explicitly.) Either way, I think it might be useful to explicitly mention the situation where the request and response are the same resource, and probably include an example too. If my understanding is correct and there is agreement on making this more explicit, then I can submit a proposed rewording (perhaps just for v3 - but if it was the intention for v2 then we may or may not want to change it there too - what do you think?) Martin Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU
