table metadata and the registry

[Tony Linde]

> Table metadata
> is not service metadata, at the registry level my understanding is
> that it is part of the description of a data collection.

Not exclusively. Some data services will include table metadata in their
service metadata.

T.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Tody [mailto:dtody at nrao.edu]
> Sent: 08 May 2007 22:08
> To: Tony Linde
> Cc: 'IVOA Registry WG'
> Subject: Re: table metadata and the registry
> 
> On Tue, 8 May 2007, Tony Linde wrote (responding to Ray):
> 
> > 1. You've proposed returning a limited subset but in the same format
> as
> > VOResource table schema. Why do you stop at that level? Surely
> everything
> > within Capability describes the service. If we're going to pick an
> arbitrary
> > level, why not Capability or, better, VOResource? What is the issue
> with the
> > service returning *all* its metadata?
> 
> As noted earlier, for services there are at least four major classes
> of "metadata" (resource, service, data collection including table,
> dataset (which can also include table instances)).  Table metadata
> is not service metadata, at the registry level my understanding is
> that it is part of the description of a data collection.  A service
> should be able to return table metadata, and this could be cached
> in a fine-grained registry, but this will need to be done using
> the database/table metadata query capabilities of the service.
> Probably at the service level this will still resolve to a simple
> static URL, however it is a distinct form of metadata and would
> require a separate query.
> 
>  	- Doug