Re: [model] section 3.2.4 Metadata

On Thu, 2006-28-12 at 15:14 -0500, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> You could as well ask "where are the formal semantics of an LFB class 
> defined?"  After all, the CE has to understand what the FE will do 
> when asked to put an instance of an LFB class on a data path.
> 
> The decision we took was to not formally define semantics.  Semantics 
> are defined textually.
>
> This is true of LFB operations.  It is also true of meta-data 
> semantics.  Typically, some LFB will produce the meta-data, with text 
> indicating that the meta-data is some result of manipulating a field 
> in a packet, or an entry in a table provided by the CE, or ...
> (Yes, there is room for ambiguity.  Writers of the text describing 
> LFB classes need to do their best to make sure the English is clear.)
> And another LFB might indicate that it uses some piece of meta-data 
> as an index in a table.
> 

Actually looking further into the text, I think i have found my answer
in the schema. Are we both exhausted of this text?
The definition of the metadatum is done in the LFB class (section 4
shows it). Your example has <metadataDefs> and its usage well done in
section 8. That helped.
I think it would do a lot of justice to have the text on metadatum to
reflect the simplicity found in section 4. A cleanup of the text is
certainly needed.

More suggestion:  add some text on LFB capability of metadata - maybe a
small extension to your example in section 8 would be useful.

cheers,
jamal