error resource in UWS

[Paul Harrison]

On 2008-07 -11, at 20:23, Patrick Dowler wrote:

>
> The UWS pattern (0.4) specifies an error resource under the job,  
> saying in the
> text that it is a human readable error message. However, there is  
> nothing in
> the schema in the appendix to say how to deliver it. Specifically,  
> it is not
> included in the JobSummary type.
>
> Should there be an error element where one can stick a message? Or  
> is this
> meant to be service-specific?
>


The original intention of this was that it could potentially be a  
rather large message - e.g. a log file, full stack trace etc. so that  
in my html interface I have it appear as a separate link from the job  
summary page - however, it strikes me that it might be nice to split  
this into two - an error summary (a short one line summary of the  
error) and the original "full" error message. The error summary could  
appear as an (optional) element in the job summary, and the full error  
message be available on at the (jobs)/(jobid)/error URI. - what do you  
think?

This does bring up another possible issue with the schema - they do  
not actually represent the places where a response is expected to  
return some sort of link to a fuller version of the resource - e.g.  
with results and error - I am not sure if this really matters, as the  
standard relative URIs to find these resources are documented, but it  
is "good REST style" to provide links to these subresources in the  
HTML interface to allow the user to drill down....

Cheers,	
	Paul.

Dr. Paul Harrison
JBCA, Manchester University
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/jodrellbank