Subject: Re: Attribute names not Internationalized ?

From: "Jim Sermersheim" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Oct 1999 12:20:22 -0600

When I looked into this I decided it was becasue of an X.409 restriction on the allowable characters in names. It said something about only ascii digits and letters, and a dash.  I also remember It went further to say the dash could not end a name, nor could there be two dashes together (-- is an ASN.1 comment).  So LDAP servers which front-end X.500 directories could concievebly run into problems if the restriction on allowable characters was relaxed.  I'm not sure that's the real reason, and I don't have a copy of x.409 handy to verify these memories.

Jim

>>> sanjay jain <[email-masked]> 10/7/99 11:42:54 AM >>>

attribute names have not been internationalized. 
Does anybody know what's the reason ? 

thanks 
sanjay

---

From: "Salter, Thomas A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 14:46:01 -0400

The real reason is that attribute names are part of the protocol.  If the
names are internationalized, then ldap servers and clients must also be
changed to support the internationalized names.  It then becomes extremely
difficult to produce products that interoperate.  

The way to internationalize attribute names is to write clients that
translate the attribute name found in the protocol into the appropriate
local-language equivalent (based on some configuration table).

It's best to think of the attribute names defined in RFC 2252, 2256 and
elsewhere as fixed, meaningless strings that are never exposed to the end
user.  In fact, there would be less confusion if they were all just object
ids.

Tom

 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Jim Sermersheim [mailto:[email-masked]]
 > Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 2:20 PM
 > To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
 > Subject: Re: Attribute names not Internationalized ?
 > 
 > 
 > When I looked into this I decided it was becasue of an X.409 
 > restriction on the allowable characters in names. It said 
 > something about only ascii digits and letters, and a dash.  
 > I also remember It went further to say the dash could not 
 > end a name, nor could there be two dashes together (-- is an 
 > ASN.1 comment).  So LDAP servers which front-end X.500 
 > directories could concievebly run into problems if the 
 > restriction on allowable characters was relaxed.  I'm not 
 > sure that's the real reason, and I don't have a copy of 
 > x.409 handy to verify these memories.
 > 
 > Jim
 >

---

From: Andrew Probert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 08:25:35 +1000

1.  -- Is used in the ASN.1 to compile protocol handlers.  At the protocol
level it is irrelevant to an X.500 server.  It is working with strings such
as IA5String and Directory
string which all allow this construct.

2.  Old ASN standards were X.208 and X.209 (now superseeded by X.680 -
X.690).

3.  Agree, it was a bad idea to replace the OIDs (which are the data
dictionary that 
    tracks back to attribute registrars) with North American strings.  Far
better to
    have OID -> String lookup tables in the client API itself.  

    As LDAP is progressively getting heavier anyway, the original LDAPV2
concept of a light 
    client, is now obselete.

Andrew Probert
Rotek Consulting
a Division of Secure Network Solutions
Tel +61 3 9690 8877
Fax +61 3 9690 8171
Mob +61 4 0941 3028
http://www.rotek.com.au
http://www.SecureNetCA.com.au
http://www.SecureNetwork.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Sermersheim [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, 8 October 1999 4:20
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Attribute names not Internationalized ?

When I looked into this I decided it was becasue of an X.409 restriction on
the allowable characters in names. It said something about only ascii digits
and letters, and a dash.  I also remember It went further to say the dash
could not end a name, nor could there be two dashes together (-- is an ASN.1
comment).  So LDAP servers which front-end X.500 directories could
concievebly run into problems if the restriction on allowable characters was
relaxed.  I'm not sure that's the real reason, and I don't have a copy of
x.409 handy to verify these memories.

Jim

thanks 
sanjay

---

From: Alan Lloyd <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 09:51:39 +1000

Why are you always right Andy?

Re ASN.1 (X.409 circa 1984) My thoughts are - there is little point in
looking into memories to see what the world was or is about. Its best to
look to the future to see what is about to happen. eg large scale X.500
(with LDAP access) deployments all over the place :-).

	re. attribute names have not been internationalized. 
	Does anybody know what's the reason ? 

I suppose attributes and OCs  have been standardised with OIDs - and the
reason for OID is one of devolved and distributed authority and
responsibility and for protocol reasons. IE. being passed between the
directory service and the client in the protocol is that client software
can interpret them and then display the values in the language concerned
- and where required - change the date formats, format the telephone
numbers, change 'S's to 'Z's, etc. for the attributes received.
.
Inversly its hard to standardise other language requirements by or with
those who naturally speak english and Australian derivatives.
It difficult to standardise what we dont understand.

regards alan

> From:	Andrew Probert 
> Sent:	Monday, October 11, 1999 8:26 AM
> To:	[email-masked]
> Subject:	RE: Attribute names not Internationalized ?
> 
> restriction on