From: Neil Cook <[email-masked]>
To: xapia-dirsynch <[email-masked]>
Cc: "n.cook" <[email-masked]>, "c.robbins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 12:03:51 +0000

We have been looking at implementing an xapia format parser, but were
unable to come to the last xapia meeting. We have come up against a few
problems with the standard as proposed in 0.6.

Namely:
1) SequenceNumber is defined as a PrintableString, using the separator ;.
Unfortunately, semicolon is not in PrintableString, so we propose to use
colon, which is.

2) The TotalRefresh sequence consists of two SET OFs, both of which are
optional. This means that they need a tag to identify them. e.g.
total           [0]     TotalRefresh
incremental     [1]     IncrementalRefresh

To avoid confusion, perhaps those elements such as TotalRefesh, which are
specified differently to those in X.525 might be renamed. This is merely
a cosmetic point however.

3) create and modify timestamps are not explicitly mentioned in the xapia
0.6 document. Is there a requirement for them to be present in the attributes
for (non glue) entries, or is it reasonable for the parser to add them based
on its knowledge of the time element?

4) An SDSEtype is needed in the DISP protocol. At the moment, a sensible
default is provided, based on knowledge of the unit of replication specified
in the replication agreement, but perhaps there is a need for this in the
xapia file format?
For example, making entries upto the replication base entry of type glue.

This actually also highlights a contradiction in the standard, which specifies
that SDSEs of type "root" will be ignored, but also states elsewhere that
"there is an empty SDSE of type "root" for the root SDSE".

---

Obviously if any of these points are rectified in the new xapia draft, then
feel free to ignore them. On that point, when will the minutes/recommendations
of that meeting become available?

Neil