Subject: RE: Unlimited length opaques (was Re: Spec-related discussions at the Bake-off)

From: "Noveck, Dave" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 09:00:37 -0800

> On Fri, Noveck, Dave wrote:
> > 
> > It's a good thing you don't have to guess what it will be 5 or 10 years
> > from now.  We have minor versioning, I am happy to say.
> 
> The ground rules for minor versioning precludes changing the structure
> of existing arguments and results.  Therefore, if there is a
> definition in the protocol that limiting, then another operation will
> need to be added to change that limit.

Not as I read the spec.

We are talking about changing a vriable length something with a limit
to another variable-length something (same somethng) with a larger 
limit.

I don't see where the spec explicitly disallows this.

It doesn't explicitly allow it either.  However, the examples it does 
give of valid changes (e.g. adding additional enumeration values) seem
to analogous to this case (expanding the set of valid lengths).

---

From: Spencer Shepler <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 02:40:48 -0600

> to analogous to this case (expanding the set of valid lengths).

Sorry.  I thought the proposal was something along the lines of
changing this:
        opaque          owner<>;
to:
        opaque          owner<OWNER_SIZE_LIMIT>;

This provides the limit on the size.  Therefore, changing the .x
in the future would be changing the structure size.

If any limit is decided upon and the .x file is changed, this needs to
be an explicit limit as in the above.

- Spencer -