Grouper Users - Open Discussion List

[Chris Hyzer <>]

Yes, I understand that this is confusing…

 

All grouper delete member operations (WS, client, GSH, API) only delete immediate (or direct) memberships:

 

https://wiki.internet2.edu/confluence/display/GrouperWG/Delete+Member

 

“Delete member will delete or replace the membership of a group.  This affects only direct memberships, not indirect memberships.  If the user is in an indirect membership, this is still a success”

 

There are two outcomes from deleting a member from a group and the member is not already a member.  And I am talking about immediate members here. 

 

1.       There is an error, since the caller was expecting the member to be a member

2.       It is ok, the end result is that the member is not a member, so who cares if the operation did anything or not, the end justifies the means

 

With web services, it is good to have operations be idempotent, so that if the same operation is transmitted twice, the end result (T|F not the result code or warnings or whatever) is the same.  If you go with #1, I suggest that the operation is not idempotent, but with #2 it is.  Currently grouper WS uses the second option.

 

In your case, it breaks down, because you think the member is a member of the group, and you think it is something that should be able to be deleted, but in fact, it is not, and you are not notified.

 

I do have the return code: SUCCESS_WASNT_IMMEDIATE_BUT_HAS_EFFECTIVE, but maybe either that is not working, or it doesn’t work for composites… would something like that work?

 

1.       Having the return code be SUCCESS _WASNT_IMMEDIATE_BUT_HAS_EFFECTIVE, and that would include composite memberships (I think of effective as anything but immediate… but do other people need to know if it is because of composite or group as a member)?  Also, in the DB, there are other distinctions in the table data

2.       –or- making another set of return codes: SUCCESS _WASNT_IMMEDIATE_BUT_HAS_COMPOSITE

3.       –or- using resultcode2 to put information about this if it is not already used…

4.       –or- leave as it is… J

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

 

From: Paul Gazda [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 2:56 PM
To:
Subject: [grouper-users] Meaning of SUCCESS_WASNT_IMMEDIATE resultCode?

 

I’m attempting to delete subjects from a composite group. When I do so, I get a successValue of “T”, a resultCode of “SUCCESS_WASNT_IMMEDIATE” and the subjects are not deleted. I find this confusing because the operation was not a success. I’m pretty sure it is trying to tell me that I should be deleting the subjects from the composite member groups rather than the parent group, but it doesn’t seem like it should be giving me either a successValue of “T” or a  resultCode that starts with “SUCCESS”. Can someone help me understand what the SUCCESS_WASNT_IMMEDIATE code is supposed to mean in this situation? Thanks.

 

Paul Gazda