Bib-1 diagnostics 32 and 33, and Partial Results

Issue raised by: Pieter Van Lierop in Paris pvl@paris1po.geac.fr Mon, 20 Oct 1997 14:32:00 +01

This clarification was originally approved 1/98 and amended 6/98. The amendment consisted of the addition of the last sentence in the reponse (no other changes).

Do bib-1 diagnostics 32 ("unpredictable partial results available"), and 33 ("Resources exhausted - valid subset of results available") mean that the server created a resultSet?

Are these intended for the case where a search aborts prematurely (for example, when resources are exhausted), there are partial results available, and the server wishes to provide access to the partial results?

Yes.

A result set is created, for both diagnostics, 32 and 33.

These three diagnostics:

• 31 Resources exhausted - no results
• 32 Resources exhausted - unpredictable partial results available
• 33 Resources exhausted - valid subset of results available

were created as non-surrogate diagnostics, to be used only when Search status is 'failure', and they correspond to the three values of ResultSetStatus: 'none', 'partial', and 'subset' (note that resultSetStatus occurs if and only if searchStatus if 'failure'.)

When a search aborts prematurely, for example, when resources are exhausted, and the server wishes to make available the incomplete results: set Search-status to 'failure;' set Result-set-status to 'subset' or 'interim' in the search response (see 3.2.2.1.10 and 3.2.2.1.11) and send (non-surrogate) diagnostic 33 or 32, depending, respectively, on whether or not the server guarantees that the results are valid.

Diagnostic 33 means that the available results are a proper subset of the (theoretical) result set that would have been created had the search completed. When diagnostic 32 is sent, the server makes no such guarantee.

For both diagnostics 32 and 33, the result set created is a normal (transient) Z39.50 result set that may be accessed and used as though the search had been successful; records may be presented, the result set may be used as a search operand, it may be made persistent via Extended Services, etc.