Problem with standard NVO web services

[Roy Williams]

There is a problem looming with making our standard services into web
services.

For example cone search has three basic input keywords (RA, DEC, SR)
and some optional ones. However what we are really doing is saying
that these parameters must be in the request object -- *in addition to
others*.

When people implement a cone search, they often have extra, private
arguments. They want a single servlet or CGI to cover a number of
catalogs and circumstances. Clearly we do not write a separate piece
of code for each database query, we write the code once. The servlet
might be used by specifying which catalog (CAT=2mass), which version
of the catalog (VERSION=1.3), or other keywords in addition to the
"official" keywords in the specification.

In the GET specification, it is all very simple. We register our one
and only service (called "search") several times like this
http://blahblah.edu/search?CAT=2mass&
http://blahblah.edu/search?CAT=SDSS&VERSION=DR1&
http://blahblah.edu/search?CAT=Messier&

Now for my question: when we make SOAP versions of the Cone and SIAP
services, we will make WSDL files to describe the services. How many
WSDL files will there be? It could be
    -- one WSDL file because there is only one service
    -- many WSDL files, one for each catalog/version

What we really want is like the Java "interface" construct. Not a full
description, like WSDL, but saying it must support some specific
methods.

Cheers
Roy

--------
Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research
roy at cacr.caltech.edu
626 395 3670