Hi Florent,
Is there any intrinsic difference, from an implementation point of view, in the context of streamability of the returned content, between a function returning always an xs:base64Binary item, and another one returning sometimes an xs:base64Binary item, sometimes a string, and sometimes a document node?
Yes there is, at least in our architecture: a specific function will always be streamable or not [1]. This static distinction is necessary because various optimizations rely on it.
I remember you talked about a second version of the HTTP Client Module... Have you thought about removing the "magic parts" of the spec and provide explicit functions for retrieving binary or string data, similar to the EXPath Archive and File Modules?
I am pretty sure Adam implemented streaming for the HTTP Client in eXist, so it might be interesting to have a look there as well.
Sounds interesting, but I couldn't find any hints in their documentation. Do you have any reference that confirms this assumption? Or some general info on how streamable results are handled in eXist? What about the first http:response item, do you know if it will also be streamed?
Best, Christian