Subject: Re: WG Last Call: APL

From: Peter Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 20:49:57 +0200

> 2) IMHO, <afi> network values should be correlated to the values of AF_* in
> /usr/include/socketbits.h (at least that's the file on Linux).  I'm not
> pushing for the inclusion of all the address families in the file, but pick
> values for IPv4 (=2) and IPv6 (=10) that would match this file.

The "address-family-numbers" values are already maintained by IANA and under
IANA/IETF control. What's the advantage of using the UNIX or API-specific
numbers?

> There should be corresponding textual values defined, i.e., "IPv4" is 2,
> "IPv6" is 10, illustrated using my suggested values.  Shortening the
> mnemonics is also fine (IP4,IP6).

I agree that mnemonics have certain advantages. The pure numbers were chosen
in favor of text values to avoid introducing yet another to be maintained
namespace.
In the "address-family-numbers" file you can find textual explanations ("IP" for
IPv4, "IP6" for IPv6), but not all are in that token format (e.g. family 15).

> 3) The applicability section should specify that an application using APL
> has to specify the meaning of the "!" character.  I can see it being used
> as negation or the end of a range.

It was meant as a negation indicator, independent of the application.
The exact meaning of a negated list element is indeed application dependent
and should be explained in a specification.

-Peter

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From: Peter Koch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 20:53:24 +0200

-Peter

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From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 15:48:53 -0400

>IANA/IETF control. What's the advantage of using the UNIX or API-specific

I was unaware IANA defined the numbers in
   http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/address-family-numbers.

There's no advantage to using the AF_* values - this was just a numbering I
had seen.

>IPv4, "IP6" for IPv6), but not all are in that token format (e.g. family 15).

We can stick with those.  My motivation for the comment is:

I want to avoid the problem we ran into when BIND began using
richly-formatted TTL's (1h30m instead of 4800) and hex fields (0x4101
instead of whatever that is) and other name server implementations stuck
with the decimal-only master files.

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Edward Lewis                                                NAI Labs
Phone: +1 443-259-2352                      Email: [email-masked]

"Trying is the first step to failure." - Homer Simpson
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