Re: Partial equality match and sort order

[Bruce_Kahn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Andrea Campi <a.campi@xxxxxxx> wrote on 03/11/2003
12:19:39 PM:
> just so that I'm sure I understand your POV: are you objecting to
> Doug's proposal or are you objecting to sorting in general? Sorting
> is still in the draft and I don't recall anybody objecting to it in
> recent times at least (read, last year).

Sorting is in the latest draft as you
noted.  However it was was added to Draft 08 (so sometime between
March 2002 and June 2002).  It was (is!?) an issue before and I honestly
do not recall reaching a concensus on it nor do I have cycles to research
it.  

It was originally added to Draft 08
as just:

6.1.1.6 Ordering of Results

   Sorting will take place in the order the columns are supplied in
the
   QUERY command.

and is now covered in 2 sections in
Draft 10:

6.1.1.6.  Ordering of Results
    Sorting will take place
in the order the columns are supplied in the QUERY command. The CS MUST
sort at least the first column. The CS MAY sort additional columns. 

and

6.1.1.7.  Date sorting order

    If EXPAND=FALSE sorting
will be by the "DTSTART" property value ascending as if it were
in UTC. 
     If
EXPAND=TRUE sorting will be by the "RECURRENCE-ID" property value
ascending as if it were in UTC. 

I have an aversion to having the sorting
requirement as stated as it precludes ANY ablity to send results back to
the requestor as they are found.

I think that having the CS "sort
all results alphabetically (or reverse) based on SUMMARY and then DESCRIPTION
[and then by LOCATION...]" is not necessarily all that useful.  Sorting
based on the order of the SELECT clause is something that the UI really
wants, NOT that CAP itself needs IMHO.  Sorting is more of a rendering
concern than a protocol concern really.

> My opinion is that sorting is irrelevant and
badly specified anyway [1];
> I agree with John that sorting should be done at the client.

Make that 3 votes for sorting in the
client rather than in the CS.  (If my MUA can insertion sort mail
that arrives out of order in my Inbox, why cant my CUA?)

Bruce
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