Re: Sequence of attributes in a SCRAM message

[Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nicolas Williams wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 08:28:20PM +0100, Dave Cridland wrote:
>  
>
> > That's not answering the question, though - what is the purpose of  
> > this rule? (I don't recall it existing before, except that 'r' was at  
> > the end).
> >    
> Sorry.  See Jeff's reply about the GS2 header vs. the SCRAM messages --
> at least that much order is required.  Within each of those order is not
> crucial.  The GS2 header is simple enough that having order in it
> actually simplifies things.
>  
Right.

> As for order within the SCRAM messages, I don't know the reason for nor
> history of that, nor do I much care whether there's order in the SCRAM
> messages.  But I agree that having order _and_ attribute=value adds
> unnecessary redundance -- one could have order and no attribute=, or
> attribute=value and no order, still have things work out.
>  
This was discussed on the mailing list (before SCRAM became a GS2 
mechanism) and there were some arguments made for making the order fixed.
While I don't really care about the issue, I would rather not revisit 
it, unless people have good arguments while the fixed order is harmful.

(Also note that there is no order enforced on extensions.)