[389-devel] Replication agreement status messages: JSON or text?

[Mark Reynolds]

I am currently working on a revision of replication agreement status 
messages.  Previously we logged the status like so:

     Error (%d) - message (sub-message) ...

If Error was set to 0 it meant success, but this caused confusion 
because of the word "Error".  So I am working on changing this.

There are two options here: change the static "Error" text to be 
dynamic: "Info", "Warning", or "Error" depending on the
state. Or, move 
away from a human friendly text string to a machine friendly simple JSON 
object.  There are pro's and con's to both. I think moving towards a 
JSON object is the correct way - easier to maintain, and easier to be 
consumed by other applications.  The cons are that it is a disruptive 
change to the previous behavior, and it could be confusing to an Admin 
who might not understand JSON.

This is the basic JSON object I was thinking of

     {"status": "Good|Warning|Bad", "status code":
NUMBER(aka error 
code), "date": "2019117485748745Z", "message": "Message
text"}

or maybe multiple messages (list):

     {"status": "Good|Warning|Bad", "status code":
NUMBER(aka error 
code), "date": "2019117485748745Z", "message": ["the
replication status 
is...", "Connection error 91", "Server Down"]}


The JSON object can easily be extended without breaking clients, but 
it's not easy to read for a human.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Mark