RE: ModifyDN -- subtrees or not?

["Jim Sermersheim" <JIMSE@novell.com>]

That's fine. There's another problem though: There is language here and there that explicitly excuses the server from behaving certain ways in certain circumstances (note the language excusing LDAP servers acting as X.500 gateways from moving distributed subtrees). Whenever we have language explicitly excusing behavior, it creates an implication that anything not excused is required. I believe this causes confusion for the reader.

One thing we could do is to qualify this type of behavior-exception language with something like: "The server may not be able to process this request due to situations such as:...". The intent is to show the well-known exceptions, while not implying that there are no other exceptions.

The problem that originated this was that an interoperability test suite is being created, and the creators have made assumptions about *required* server behavior based on the operation semantics called out in RFC 2251. I believe what you are saying below, is that the operation semantics have no bearing on required server behavior. Correct?

Jim

>>> "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org> 8/24/01 8:41:17 AM >>>
I will argue against adding imperatives here (and other
such places). LDAP is defined such that servers can return
unwillingToPerform or other appropriate resultCode when
unable or unwilling to complete the request.  For protocol
interoperability, it is only necessary that both peers agree
on the meaning of the request and responses.  It does not
require that independent implementations behave in the exact
same manner when given the same request/response.

Kurt