Simple search API proposal, take 2

[Jean-Francois Dockes]

Magnus Bergman writes:
 > On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:41:10 +0100
 > Jean-Francois Dockes <jean-francois.dockes at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
 > >   I think that the sequence number can be kept implicit:
 > > 
 > >     Query (in s query_string, out i query_handle)
 > >     GetHitProperties ( in s query_handle, in i offset, in i limit, 
 > >                        in as properties, out (sequence of maps)
 > > response )
 > 
 > What you call "offset" is exactly what I meant by "sequence number", if
 > I didn't misunderstand something. The alternative (really keeping it
 > implicit) would be to completely leave it out and just return the bunch
 > of hits (much like how read(2) works. But that would also require a
 > function similar to lseek(2), so I guess it wouldn't be simpler anyway.

What I mean by:

 GetHitProperties ( in s query_handle, in i offset, in i limit, 
                   in as properties, out (sequence of maps) response);

is: return "limit" hits starting from offset "offset". This is a
combined lseek/read call. 

I propose that the hit numbers should be implicit *in the response*. We
know that it contains an ordered list of hits from number "offset" to
"offset+limit-1", so I think that there is no point in repeating the hit
number for every entry, as would (in your words): "A map mapping each hit
(sequence number) to a map of property-list of values pairs" 

Or did I not understand you ?

jf