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Re: [Handle-info] Newbie Question - RFC 3651 <index>
Hi Konstantin,
That's a very good explanation, except that I wouldn't lean too
heavily on the RDBMS analogy, since the handle system is optimized to
answer only certain questions, instead of the open-ended queries that
can be made of relational databases. But other than that, as you say,
the handle system can indeed be thought of as a single highly
distributed database, collectively maintained by all of the
organizations running handle servers. And every value in the system
can be uniquely addressed by the handle/index pair.
Larry
On Mar 29, 2008, at 2:59 PM, Konstantin Rekk wrote:
On Sat, 2008-03-29 at 18:32 +0000, John Smith wrote:
I am reading rfc 3651, I don't understand what the <index> field is
exactly?
Hi John,
a handle consists of a set of handle values.
The index is indeed a kind of key for values (similiar to records)
within this set. If you need to access/retrieve a specific value from
the set, you have to provide the index for this value (actually the
only
possible query parameter).
If you are approaching the handle system from a (distributed)
relational
database view point, then the
pair (handle-pid, index) would be a kind of primary key for the
(distributed) table of all handle values which exist within the
system.
My 2 cents, please correct me if I am wrong.
Best! Konstantin
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Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)
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