[OAI-implementers] oai :: how to handle errors during ListRecords request?

[Simeon Warner]

Hi Matthias,

There is no way to cope with an error in part of a ListRecords response. 
This is essentially outside the OAI model, in which an error-free 
repository is assumed. I think the server should return an HTTP 500 
"Internal Server Error", or perhaps a 503 "Retry After" if there is some 
reasonable hope that the exception would not recur if the request were 
attempted again. A harvester should abort the harvest if it gets an HTTP 
500 error.

The other option would be to consider that such an error condition 
invalidates the resumptionToken and the give a badResumptionToken error
(http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-harvester.htm#resumptionTokenErrorRecovery).

Cheers,
Simeon



On Mon, 2 Oct 2006, Matthias Egger wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> maybe this question has already arisen somewhere, but i couldn't make it out 
> in the documentation, so I need to ask the community:
>
> How do I handle errors which may occur during a ListRecords request?
> For example when during reading a destined result-record's dataset (a xml 
> file) some unpredicted error occurs, e.g. an IOException for some reason 
> whatsoever.
>
> So what am I supposed to provide in my response then:
>
> - throw away the whole result list and provide an oai-error code
>  (and which one in that case)?
>
> - just replace that one concerned record-dataset with an oai error-tag
>  (also here: which code then?)
>
> - ignore those errors and remove any failed record-dataset
>  from the returned result list?
>
> - ignore those errors and provide an empty record-tag for those datasets
>
>
> is there a best-practice or any specified procedure?
> suggestions are very welcome.
>
> thanx so long
> matthias
>
>
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