[OAI-implementers] Lists/Flow-control/Emptiness

[Tim Brody]

Dear all,

1) empty resumption token in complete list

Where a result set is returned without flow control (e.g. a small list), can
an empty resumption token be appended to this list, even if it is
"complete"?
(The logic to cope with determining the difference between the completing
list and a complete list is not trivial)

2) no-records+resumption token

An empty list won't validate, e.g. ListRecords without any records.

It is possible that flow control may result in an incomplete list that does
not contain any records, e.g.:
Harvester requests (until=2002-03-04)
Performs flow control, gets to last page-1
Records on last page move out of result set
Harvester requests final token, for which no records can be returned

An empty token by itself will not validate, and "noRecordsMatch" means that
no records could be returned for the query, not for the resumption token.

Change schema or return noRecordsMatch?

Regards,
Tim