Subject: Use of Ecom_SchemaVersion in ECML

From: Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 14:42:12 -0400

A question as arisen about Ecom_SchemaVersion, in particular as to whether
it is intended for merchant to client or client to merchant communication.

In ECML v1, this sort of thing is a bit messy. It was permitted for the
merchant to communicate to the client by putting a value in a field. This
might be just to tell the client something or to provide a default value to
be returned to the merchant if not changed by the client. I don't think
there were any cases of serious conflict between these two uses.

In ECML v2, there is the Mode attribute to clarify this. If it is set to
Assert, then you know the field value is being sent to recipient. If it is
set to Query, then you know the recipient is being asked to insert a value
and any value provided to the recipient is a default.

Getting back to the Ecom_SchemaVersion field, these general considerations
don't seem to clarify it much.  I think if a value is provided from the
merchant, it means the level of answer the merchant is expecting. In v1, the
client is expected to change it to the level supported by the client. In v2,
this is only true if the Mode is absent or Query.

Any comments?

Donald

Donald E. Eastlake 3rd, +1-508-851-8280 (voice), +1-508-851-8507 (fax)
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