Hi Patrick,
On Aug 30, 2010, at 10:43 , Patrick Ohly wrote:
Speaking of CtCap, do you happen to know what Nokia's involvement
was in
the definition of that part of the spec? Or speaking more generally,
what was the desired usage of CtCap?
I've just been in another discussion around that, where the Synthesis
use of CtCap to determine unsupported properties was questioned.
One interpretation of CtCap is "limitations for some properties". In
that interpretation, unlisted properties might still be supported.
The other interpretation is that CtCap has to be complete and accurate,
and thus anything not covered by it (value too long, unknown property)
is not stored by the device. This is the interpretation used by
Synthesis. FWIW, it sounds more plausible to me.
The real world devices that most prominently and strictly supported our interpretation
were Nokia's.
We had a lot of trouble of getting all data out of them without entirely omitting CTCap in
the beginning, until we found that not only all properties needed to be listed (that was
the case already in very early versions of our server), but also the complete list of
possible property parameters. For example, a Nokia phone would not send any telephone
number unless the CTCap had not only "TEL" but also the possible property
parameters "WORK", "HOME", "CELL"...
And because their clients were for a long time pretty much the only ones looking at CTCap
at all apart from ours, I'd at least say that this interpretation is a de facto
standard.
But I have no insight into the involvement of Nokia in that part of the specs.
But is there anything in the standard which supports one or the
other
interpretation?
If there is, I am not aware of it.
Or perhaps it was part of meeting minutes?
Maybe, I don't know.
Lukas Zeller (luz(a)synthesis.ch)
-
Synthesis AG, SyncML Solutions & Sustainable Software Concepts
info(a)synthesis.ch,
http://www.synthesis.ch