Subject: Re: <draft-ietf-disman-remops-mib-06.txt>

From: Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:06:51 -0700 (PDT)

Hi -

> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 15:59:28 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Alan Luchuk <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: <draft-ietf-disman-remops-mib-06.txt>
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
...
> >What was it about the DESCRIPTION text that led to the conclusion that
> >the user interface would use hex notation for ipv4 or ipv6 addresses?
> >Why wouldn't that same logic lead one to believe that DNS names would
> >be entered in hex?  :-)
> 
> The description clause describes, if not specifies, the number of
> octets for each of the address types.  Specifically, for the IPv4
> address type, the description says the length of HostAddress octet
> string is 4 octets.  
> 
> The only way I can think of to encode an IPv4 address in a 4-octet 
> octet string is to use the hex form.  Even the shortest human-friendly 
> textual representation of a dotted-decimal IPv4 address is 7 octets 
> (e.g.,  0.0.0.0), and the longest is 15 octets (255.255.255.255).
> So the only way I can see to encode the IPv4 addresses in a 4-octet
> string is to convert each integer (0-255) to it's corresponding hex 
> value and stuff each integer into a single octet of the 4-octet 
> string.
> 
> Please educate me:  what have I overlooked?
...

How something is encoded on the wire has little to do with its appearance
at the user interface.

That BER needs two octets to represent the integer value 21845 is
irrelevant to the user interface decision to display that information as
0x5555 or "UU" or 21,845 or 21.845 or 21845 or as a quivering chartreuse
and cerulean icon.

That TCP port numbers are carried as big-endian two-byte quantities on
the wire doesn't mean that I can't store them internally in little-endian
thrity-two bit words, or display them using strings like "http".

If we need to say this, I think the statement belongs at a much higher
level, like the SMI documents, since this question is hardly unique to
this document.

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 Randy Presuhn           [email-masked]     http://www.bmc.com/
 Voice: +1 408 616-3100  BMC Software, Inc.           965 Stewart Drive
 Fax:   +1 408 616-3101  Sunnyvale, California 94086  USA
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 Any relationship between my opinions and BMC's is probably coincidental.
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