[INFOD-WG] Output from getmetadata is not defined. - action 233

[Fisher, SM (Steve)]

Hi,

This has been rolling on for a while and I would like to get agreement
on what we should do.

The spec says the output of getMetaData is a GetMetaDataQueryResponse
which is:

<infod:GetMetaDataQueryResponse>
  <infod:MetaDataQueryResult>
    {xsd:anyType}
  <infod:GetMetaDataQueryResult>
<infod:MetaDataQueryResponse>

I was concerned that this makes interoparability impossible. Ronny
replied:

"... I don't think we can be more specific than that. We require the
"any" to be the XML-"blob" that you are asking about. Everything is in
the registry - including data vocabularies. And through the functions
that dieter provided ... you can get to every place in the registry. In
general you will receive an xml doc within the "any" ....  I still think
interoperability is not a problem..."

I agree that what we are doing is fully consistent with the spec -
however I do not see how two implementations can be interoperable unless
we can guarantee that even though the return type is the xml blob, if
someone defines the same properties and vcaobularies on two different
implementations and makes a getMetaData call the xml blob will be
identical. We will need to define a test suite to demonsatrate
interoperability and I expect we are going to fail badly in this area.

Steve