[Dev] Uses of <cloudAlias>?

[Morgen Sagen]

On May 31, 2005, at 8:27 PM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:

> Hi all.  I was surveying existing cloud definitions in parcel.xml,  
> hoping to firm up how the schema API will "spell" its cloud  
> definition syntax, and I ran across a few interesting examples of  
> the use of the <cloudAlias> element in cloud endpoints, and I have  
> a few questions.
>
> First, I noticed that in all cases where cloudAlias is used, it is  
> used on *all* of the "byCloud" endpoints in that cloud, and it  
> invariably matches the alias of that cloud.  In other words, clouds  
> aliased as the "default" cloud always use a cloudAlias  
> value="default", if they hav any cloudAlias elements.  My question:  
> is there ever a time that you would need to specify a *different*  
> cloud name?

I can't think of a situation when traversing and endpoint by cloud  
should switch to a different cloud.  So not being able to specify a  
cloudAlias for an endpoint seems reasonable.

>
> Second, I found that of a total of 32 endpoints defined as  
> "byCloud", 9 of these did not have a cloudAlias element specified.   
> Are these defaulting to the same meaning as an explicit cloudAlias  
> with the same name as the alias of the defining cloud, or does it  
> mean something else altogether?

I believe leaving the cloudAliases out of the endpoint definitions  
means the various methods such as Cloud.getItems( ) will use the  
cloudAlias that is passed to the method:

    http://o11n.org/docs/current/api/repository.schema.Cloud.Cloud- 
class.html#getItems

...which I think we always pass.  As a test I removed all the  
cloudAlias values on every byCloud endpoint and things still worked.   
Unless I am missing something, I think we can get by without having  
cloudAliases defined on byCloud endpoints, since when it comes time  
to actually use them, we pass in a cloudAlias (such as "default", or  
"sharing") anyway.


> Third, I found one "byRef" attribute that nonetheless has a  
> cloudAlias element present.  Does this actually mean anything, or  
> is it just an error?  (I assume it's the latter.)

That must be an error.

>
> Any insight y'all can offer would be appreciated.  I think I've  
> come up with a reasonable way to specify clouds in the schema API,  
> but it might need a little tweaking depending on the answers to  
> these questions.  I'll make a proposal for the actual syntax as  
> soon I know the answers to the above.  Thanks!
>
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