[Rets-dev] Search responses and StandardNames

[Scott Gifford]

Paul Stusiak <pstusiak at falcontechnologies.com> writes:

> In-line
>
> Scott Gifford wrote:

[...]

>> I'm also unclear about what the appropriate StandardNames are for some
>> elements.  In the specs for RETS 1.5, Table 11-6 says "StandardName -
>> Alphanumeric - The name of the field as it is known in the Real Estate
>> Transaction XML DTD".  But some elements in the DTD are ambiguous on
>> their own, for example "Area", which appears under both LivingArea and
>> LotSize.  The file "retsdatadictionary200408.pdf" from the RETS Web
>> site seems to resolve some of these, but not all, and it contains many
>> StandardNames that seem to be different than those in the DTD, for
>> example "School.Primary" instead of "ElementarySchool", and is missing
>> others, such as "ListingID".  What is the definitive source of
>> StandardNames, and how should these ambiguities be resolved?
>>
>>
> Those sound like errors in the specification. I'll look into that.

Also, the reference server appears to return a third set of
StandardNames, in some cases overlapping one or the other of the above
documents, but in other cases returning completely different names.

[...]

> I'm thinking that whomever suggested that using the Standard-XML
> response type is tricky should have their programming merit badge
> revoked. It isn't.

Standard-XML seems to be no trouble, but so far, I've spent almost as
much time trying to figure out what StandardNames to use and where to
use them as I have implementing the rest of the search.  That's tricky
enough to be discouraging, anyways, which may be part of the reason
that vendors have implemented this feature slowly and/or shoddily.

[...]

> You may also want to consider the MRIS Conduit tool. 

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

[...]

> You may also want to install something like qdpf
> http://www.hawksley.net/software/qdpf/
> It is a trivial Java-based port forwarder that echoes the http
> information to a console window. You could, of course, use something
> more sophisticated like WireShark
> http://www.wireshark.org (was ethereal).
>
> You'll definitely find it useful for figuring out what is going across
> the wire.

Yeah, I'm a huge WireShark/Ethereal/tcpdump fan, it's great for
debugging this sort of thing.

Thanks!

---Scott.