SAMP document next stage

[Mark Taylor]

Dear SAMP people,

I have posted a new version of the SAMP document on the wiki at

    http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/SampDoc

This incorporates the changes we discussed at Baltimore, specifically
(as listed in Appendix B of the document):

    1. Characters allowed in string type restricted to avoid problems
       transmitting over XML; was 0x01-0x7f, now 0x09, 0x0a, 0x0d,
       0x20-0x7f (3.3).
    2. Return values of callAll and notifyAll operations changed;
       they now return information about clients receiving the messages
       (3.11).
    3. New hub administrative message samp.hub.disconnect (5.4.1).
    4. Empty placeholder appendix on SAMP/PLASTIC interoperability removed.
    5. Wording clarified and made more explicit in a few places.

as well as one or two other cosmetic changes.

I hope to ask Tom to promote this to PR next week.  If anyone has 
any changes or corrections to suggest, please mail to this list
within the next week (by the end of Wed 19 Nov).

Item 2 above requires changes to hub implementations (most likely not
change to applications).  Item 1 probably does not require changes to code.
Item 3 presents the possibility for new functionality.

I have modified the JSAMP toolkit in respect of items 1, 2 and 3 above.
This is not currently in public release, but a copy is available at
    ftp://andromeda.star.bris.ac.uk/pub/star/jsamp/jsamp-0.3-.jar
for testing.  The test suite now tests for correct implementation as regards
items 2 and 3 above - it would be nice if one of the other hubs 
(Luigi?) could get updated to pass the new tests (i.e. implement at 
least item 2) so that we can fully satisfy the two-implementations
rule prior to submitting this for PR.

Mark

-- 
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/