Re: Last Call issues on USEPRO

[Thorfinn <thorfinn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 6 Nov 2008, at 10:11, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > **#1583** USEPRO LC 5.2.3: Checkgroups control messages
>
> There are several individual questions here.
>
> One is handling of subhierarchies in combination with groups with  
> the same
> name as the hierarchy.  I generally agree with Charles here that there
> isn't a better way of handling the edge case than what we currently  
> have,
> and the group at the top of the sub-hierarchy will have to be listed  
> in
> the parent checkgroups.

Sounds workable to me.  Not the nicest solution, but I can't think of  
any more correct way to do it.

> Another is the serial number.  I think there are two viable options  
> here:
> unlimited-length serial numbers (the current text) or sequence-space
> arithmetic.  I lean mildly towards the current text just because I  
> don't
> want to have to write the text for sequence-space arithmetic, and I  
> find
> persuasive the argument that unlimited-length numbers can be checked  
> with
> ASCII comparison and don't need to be treated as numbers.

That was my argument. :-)  ( strlen(a, b) || strcmp(a, b) ) is  
perfectly sensible as a serial number comparator, assuming trimming of  
any leading zeroes and whitespace and validation that the rest of the  
string is digits.  Not sure if we have some kind of notes-to-the- 
implementor, but that may be worth putting in as such a note.

> Another is what should be done with a checkgroups that doesn't have a
> serial number when checkgroups for that hierarchy previously did  
> have a
> serial number.  I think this is a gap in the current specification.

Once you've accepted a serial number checkgroups, I think that you're  
stuck with serial numbers, and non-serial checkgroups should be  
ignored.  Anything else seems to me to suffer the same issue as reset  
messages below - there's no real way to definitively determine that  
you're somehow supposed to stop caring about serial numbers.

I don't know if any extra wording is required to achieve that.  If so,  
it should probably be added.

> The last is whether there's a means to reset the serial number.   
> Currently
> there isn't.

Not really an issue if you go with either unlimited length or sequence  
space arithmetic as the options for serial number.  Neither of them  
require a means to reset the serial number - and in fact in both cases  
it's most likely counterproductive to have such a mechanism, since  
there is no way to guarantee that any reset message is delivered.

> It may be worth splitting this point into four issues; the first and  
> the
> last may already be resolved, depending on whether anyone wants to
> advocate doing something different about them than what we have now.

Well, my comments above. :-)  I have nothing to say on the other issues.

Meep,

  Thorf

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