RE: Attribute Name Length Bounds

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

I think you're right, it doesn't cross the typical mind that one can silently ignore sections of values. Apparently it did cross the mind of at least one implementor, as it was pointed out in the IETF57 LDAPBIS meeting that at least one implementor ignores some octets in certain PDU values.

 

I believe there is text in X.680 that specifies that all octets are significant--this clarification would really just be a repetition of that statement. Maybe another way of looking at it is: this is an item called out in a reference document that we need to carry into the referring document because people aren't fully reading or understanding the reference document.

 

Jim

>>> "Ramsay, Ron" <Ron.Ramsay@ca.com> 7/17/03 9:48:20 AM >>>

Hi Jim,

 

Is there a point to the 'clarification'? Isn't it like saying that all octets of a JPEG file are significant? Sorry, I don't see the point.

 

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Sermersheim [mailto:jimse@novell.com]
Sent: Thursday, 17 July 2003 07:39
To: ietf-ldapbis@OpenLDAP.org
Subject: RE: Attribute Name Length Bounds

All,

 

At this point it seems clear that it would be a good thing to make a clarification to [Protocols]. That clarification would state something like: all octets of a ber-encoded LDAP PDU are significant. No octets may be ignored unless they are part of extended elements that are themselves ignored.

 

Whether or not we want the TS to enforce mandatory minimums for element lengths (such as attribute type names) is an issue in the data model (and/or schema) doc(s).

 

Jim