[higgins-dev] [IdAS] registered Contexts

[Greg Byrd <gbyrd@xxxxxxxx>]

For the IdASRegistry, we have methods for registering and browsing both 
ContextFactories and Contexts.  I'd like to explore what it means to 
register a Context, and what it means for a client to "get" a Context 
from the service.

(1) Should the set of registered Contexts (i.e., returned by 
IdASRegistry::getContexts) be the ones that have been created by some 
Factory?  To "prime the pump", we can have Factories create (but not 
open) some set of pre-configured Contexts, so that our brand new IdAS 
service has some registered Contexts to offer.  Or should there be a 
specific set of registered Contexts -- those that the Factories 
specifically want to advertise to the outside world, rather than just 
any old Context that some client has managed to create/open?


(2) We currently have a getContexts method (with a filter) that returns 
a set of URI's.  Given a particular URI, the client will have to go 
through the set of Factories and call canCreate to find a Factory that 
can potentially create this Context.  I propose we add a new 
getContextFactories(ContextRef) method to IdASFactories to make this 
simpler -- it returns Iterable<IContextFactory> that contains all 
Factories for which canCreate(ContextRef) is true.  (Note: The current 
getContextFactories takes a filter, which I assume is the same filter as 
in the rest of the API, which means that it searches through attributes 
and metadata.  My proposal is to add an additional method, not to remove 
or change the exisiting one.)


...Greg