Subject: Re: proposed changes to RFC2614

From: James Kempf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 23:03:32 -0700

It depends on how big you want the code in the UA to be. For the UA to
check whether a query was restricted to the rules in the bis draft,
it would have to peform full parsing of the query. What's the point
of now requiring the UA and the SA and DA to perform the parsing?

		jak
>
>> Also, I don't think we could have the API return this for stuff like
>> queries unless it was a return code for the protocol as well. Otherwise,
>> the API would have to parse queries to find out if they were OK.
>> 
>
>Is it better to issue bogus queries to the network and rely on answers
>from various remote devices or to do parameter checking?
>
>Erik
>

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From: Erik Guttman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 09:58:01 +0200 (MET DST)

Jim,

Wouldn't it be easy for APIs to check for the following and return an 
error without having to parse the whole query?

 c - Eliminate wild cards in queries. '(x=y*y)' would return a
     NO_LONGER_SUPPORTED error from the API. [3.1.3]

 d - Eliminate attribute request by service type. Requests for incomplete
     service URLs (ie. only a service type) returns a NO_LONGER_SUPPORTED
     error from the API.  [3.2.1]
    
 e - Eliminate support for wildcards in attribute list requests.
     Return a NO_LONGER_SUPPORTED error from the API if this is 
     requested. [3.2.2]

 f - Eliminate support for wildcards in the tag list for selective
     attribute deregistration.  Return a NO_LONGER_SUPPORTED error
     from the API. [3.6.1]

> >from various remote devices or to do parameter checking?

Erik 
---------------------------------------------------------------
 Public words and deeds have their own weight and significance 
 quite apart from private motives or secret calculation.
   - Timothy Garton Ash

---

From: Terry Lambert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 13:07:57 -0700

Erik Guttman wrote:
> Wouldn't it be easy for APIs to check for the following and
> return an error without having to parse the whole query?
> 
>  d - Eliminate attribute request by service type. Requests
>      for incomplete service URLs (ie. only a service type)
>      returns a NO_LONGER_SUPPORTED error from the API.  [3.2.1]
> 

I really dislike this idea.

Let me ask the question that makes me dislike it:

Now that we've made the SAs thinner by doing these things,
what do we do at the UA when we get one of these responses?

It seems to me the options are:

A)	Say "I guess you don't get service"

or

B)	Implement a bunch of complicated code in the UA
	to do the pattern discriination which was formerly
	handled by the SA, but must now be handled in each
	application.

It seems to me that (A) is unacceptable, and (B) moves the
problem from the server to the client.  And servers are
expected to have more resources than clients, so that makes
no sense.

-- Terry Lambert
-- Whistle Communications, Inc., an I.B.M. Company
-- [email-masked]
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