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SRW/SRU is the collective name given to two services, one of which is a soap document literal encoded web service (Search and Retrieve Web Service - SRW) and one of which is a URL encoded REST-like interface ((Search and Retrieve via URL - SRU).
The SRW/SRU search service (as distinct from the explain service) provides a single operation “Search” which carries with it parameters to indicate result set paging, record syntax and all other search information. Since SRW/SRU does not have the same direct concept of persistent server side result sets (named result sets are in fact supported, but not so widely used as in z39.50) many implementations rely upon server side caching of a hashed form of the input query. This provides efficient and consistent retrieval when paging through large result sets.
The standard document provides specific details about the parameters needed to invoke the search.
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