Subject: Re: Case-sensitive - Was: Hex versus Decimal Numbers

From: Chip Sharp <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 12:30:49 -0500

A question came up on this matter at SG16.

I was wondering if the statement on case sensitive applies to things like
QuotedStrings.  Are there any other things that are case-sensitive.

I notice that "0x" has been added to some of the productions with
HexDig.  Is "0x" cases insensitive.   In addition, is the intention that
all Hex strings are preceded?
In this case, more of these things need to be added.  For example IPv4
address uses hex digits, but don't have the "0x".  This should be
consistent.  I'm not sure 0x is necessary to mark Hex digits.

SG16 would like some clarification on the scope of the statement that the
protocol is case-insensitive.  As well as the line that the Identifier is
case insensitive.

Chip

At 05:10 PM 10/29/99 -0400, Brian Rosen wrote:
>I believe the intention is that the entire protocol is not case sensitive,
>no exceptions.
>
>Others may disagree.  We surely need to say one way or the other in Annex B.
>
>Brian
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Al Varney [mailto:[email-masked]]
> > Sent: Friday, October 29, 1999 4:05 PM
> > To: Brian Rosen
> > Subject: Case-sensitive - Was: Hex versus Decimal Numbers
> >
> >
> > Brian and Jon Steer,
> >
> > At 15:14 10/29/1999 -0400, Brian Rosen wrote:
> > >I think you are correct, and we should make this change.
> >
> >     Maybe you two could answer some dumb questions.  MGCP spec
> > specifically said (at least for Verbs and Events) that
> > text-comparisons
> > were case-insensitive.  [ "glinesup/onhook" and "glinesup/OnHook" are
> > identical. ]
> >
> >    Is this the intent in Annex B?  (It's not stated.  If nothing else,
> > you could add a note to the NAME definition.)
> >
> >    The MGCP spec also specifies the case-insensitive treatment on an
> > object-by-object basis.  That is, Verbs are noted as case-insensitive
> > in one place, Events are noted as case-insensitive in another, etc.
> > It's not obvious if EVERYTHING is case-insensitive (URLs,
> > Domain Names,
> > etc.), or just those objects described that way in the
> >
> >    So another question (or thought experiment) is:  If I converted any
> > text-based command to both all-UPPER-CASE and all-LOWER-CASE (prior to
> > parsing), would the resulting commands both work?  If not, which items
> > (URLs, parameters to packages, SDP contents, etc.) are allowed to be
> > NON-case-insensitive?
> >
> >    Finally, if some places are case-sensitive, how does one test that
> > an implementation isn't case-sensitive in an inappropriate place?
> >
> >
> > Al Varney - Lucent Technologies  +1 630 224-7493    [email-masked]
> >

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--------------------------------------------------
Chip Sharp                 Consulting Engineering
Cisco Systems              Telco Bio-region
Reality - Love it or Leave it.
--------------------------------------------------

---

From: Abdallah Rayhan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 15:36:37 -0500

I believe that the protocol is case-insensitive. That was the intention
and still is. Is there a place where it differs ? No! quotedString may
have an exception but I think it should not be the case. We use quotedString
as a relaxed VALUE that is if VALUE does not allow certain chars
to be used, then quotedString is the way out. If the protocol uses scripts
I might change my mind about this but we dont. Hence, it is case-insensitive
everywhere.

As for "0x", I am not a big fan of it because we can assume the same
as IP. If we get rid of it then we have to indicate clearly somewhere
that it is hex. We might as well leave it as is.

Abdallah

---

From: Chip Sharp <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 17:24:04 -0500

RFC contains the following text:

" NOTE:     Rule names are case-insensitive"

"NOTE:     ABNF strings are case-insensitive and the character set for
these strings is us-ascii."

"To specify a rule which IS case SENSITIVE,  specify the characters
individually.

    For example:

         rulename    =  %d97 %d98 %d99"

This matches "abc" but not "ABC".

Since RFC2234 provides the rules for the syntax in terms of case, there is
really no need to state this in the document.

Chip