Subject: [ldapext] draft-legg-ldap-transfer-00

From: "Jim Sermersheim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:15:31 -0600

I'm worried that using SearchRequest.attributes to specify transfer
encodings is going to cause problems.
 
The draft uses an attribute description option to allow one to request
a search return attribute to be encoded in a particular way
(<attr>;transfer-<xferopt>). It goes further to allow "all user attrs
transferred as..." (*;transfer-<xferopt>). Other specification s have
proposed and are proposing other tricks with attribute description
options (+ specifies "all operational attrs"), (+country specifies "all
user attributes allowed by the country object class").
 
The problem is that we have a single mechanism (attribute description
option) to specify disparate features. The way in which these disparate
features work together (I fear) will be overlooked and under specified.
For example, as soon as one sees that *;transfer-ber is available, they
want to use +;transfer-ber, or +country;transfer-ber.
 
We can either address this by adding some more statements to the
extensions considerations document, or just stop using attribute
description options and start using controls.
 
Jim