Requirements for Supporting the Context Operations

The lookup operation fn_ctx_lookup() must be supported by all contexts. When contexts do not support other operations, they can return an FN_E_OPERATION_NOT_SUPPORTED status code (see codes in Table 2-3).

XFN contexts are required to support the resolution phase of every operation in the base context and attribute interface when involved in the operation as intermediate contexts. That is, each intermediate context must participate in the process of conveying the operation to the target context, even if it does not support that operation itself. For example, not all contexts need to allow binding and listing names. However, all contexts must fully support the resolution phase of these operations.

Composite names are passed to an XFN context implementation in a structural form as an ordered sequence of components. When resolving a name, the context implementation is responsible for:

• Determining which set of leading components it must resolve

• Resolving that portion to a reference

• Returning a status object containing this reference and the portion of the name unresolved

Composite name resolution is further discussed in "Composite Name Resolution".