IPP Mail Archive: Re: IPP> 'any' out-of-band value

Re: IPP> 'any' out-of-band value

From: kugler@us.ibm.com
Date: Wed Jun 28 2000 - 15:51:46 EDT

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    In today's telecon, nobody liked my proposal for an 'any' out-of-band
    value. I have an alternative solution, using the existing 'unknown' OOB
    value. We could amend the IIG to specify that if the Printer's
    "document-format-supported" is 'unknown', this indicates that all
    document-formats are acceptable.

    This checking, from section 3.2.1.5, Validate the values of the REQUIRED
    Operation attributes, would have to be modified:

         document-format (mimeMediaType)

         IF NOT a single non-empty 'mimeMediaType' value, REJECT/RETURN
              'client-error-bad-request'.
         IF the value length is greater than 255 octets, REJECT/RETURN
              'client-error-request-value-too-long'.
         IF NOT in the Printer object's "document-format-supported" attribute,
              REJECT/RETURN 'client-error-document-format-not-supported'
         IF NOT supplied by the client, the IPP object assumes the value of the
              Printer object's "document-format-default" attribute.

    to :

         document-format (mimeMediaType)
         IF NOT a single non-empty 'mimeMediaType' value, or 'unknown',
              REJECT/RETURN 'client-error-bad-request'.
         IF the value length is greater than 255 octets, REJECT/RETURN
              'client-error-request-value-too-long'.
         IF NOT in the Printer object's "document-format-supported" attribute,
              REJECT/RETURN 'client-error-document-format-not-supported',
              unless "document-format-supported:" is 'unknown'.
         IF NOT supplied by the client, the IPP object assumes the value of the
              Printer object's "document-format-default" attribute.

    Since this proposal only changes implementation guidance, not the spec
    itself, I don't think it should break any existing implementations.

         -Carl

    --- In ipp@egroups.com, kugler@u... wrote:
    >
    >
    > At one time, I believe the Set 2 Ops proposal included an 'any'
    out-of-band
    > value. But I don't see it in the spec anymore. 'Anyway', I'd like to
    > raise this issue again, since we have run into this problem again in
    > product development.
    >
    > The key place where we need the 'any' out-of-band value is in
    > "document-format-supported". Some IPP Printers are actually proxy
    gateways
    > to downstream print services of some kind. It's not always possible to
    > know what document-formats are supported downstream. One example comes
    > from the IPP model document itself: a Printer can represent a logical
    > device such as "a gateway into an online document archive or repository".
    > The archive or repository may "support" any document format. But there
    is
    > no way to indicate this in IPP.
    >
    > Lacking an 'any' value, the best solution (hack) we have come up with is
    to
    > respond with "document-format-supported" (if applicable) containing
    > 'application/octet-stream' plus whatever "document-format" the client
    might
    > have supplied in the request. But this could be confusing to some
    clients,
    > and is in direct violation of the spec: "The values of all other Printer
    > object attributes (including "document-format-supported") remain
    invariant
    > with respect to the client supplied document format..."
    >
    > Could you discuss this in San Fran? I will try to make at least part of
    > the telecon tomorrow.
    >
    > -Carl



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