On 05/08/2012 12:00 PM, Eoghan Glynn wrote:
1) what's the name you'd give this parameter? job-id? batch-id? flow-id? command-id? correlation-id???
job-id will confuse us with engine's job-id which is a single command today. correleation-id is pretty long and confusing as implies on correlation of something.
I'm for flow-id or batch-id. batch-id sounds the right one to me, as this is identifying a batch of calls.
How about log-id? It isn't supposed to be unique, or of any format, it's just used to log calls, so log-id is the most natural (or log-tag or whatever name you prefer).
Also I think it's more of a header-type parameter since it's metadata for the call, not an actual parameter that influences the outcome of the "flow".
I actually believe you're right, it probably is better to pass this parameter as an http header. You've changed my mind about this (objections, anyone, to passing it as a header as opposed to passing it as a url parameter)?
Agree also that a header is much more natural in this case than a URL parameter.
Also in the case where the client does not specify the ID themselves on the initial request, a generated value should be returned as response header (so that this can be passed as request header with the next request if part of the same over-arching task, or else just to aid log interpretation if the initial request was standalone but still mapped internally to multiple backend actions).
About log_id - it could sound like there are numerous logs, and the user is asked to specify the ID of the log he wishes to write to. But perhaps: log_entry_id?
Is there any possibility that this identifier may be leveraged for uses other than log interpretation?
One other suggestion to add into the mix: MetaTask-ID.
the one thing mentioned in the thread and worth remembering is this ID is not unique, as client can set it as they want.