[OAI-implementers] Empty ResumptionToken

[Tim Brody]

Dear all,

>From the protocol doc:
"o the response containing the incomplete list that completes the list
includes an empty resumptionToken element"

I'm not sure whether this means the last page "must", "should", or "can"
include an empty resumptionToken - it's not mentioned in migration?

Of the three initial OAI 2 implementations I've harvested none implemented
this behaviour.

The most generic way I can see to get "around" this behaviour is to
silently drop empty resumption tokens and ignore noRecordsMatch.

<rant>
noRecordsMatch should not be an error (and I'll keep saying it until
doomsday)

an empty resumptionToken is just plain wrong ("The format of the
resumptionToken is not defined by the OAI-PMH and should be considered
opaque by the harvester", but OAI-PMH would appear to "define" an empty
resumptionToken - as Homer puts it, "Doh!".)
</rant>

Regards,
Tim.