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Re: argh ... I wish people would RTFRFC

2004-09-08 03:16:43
Roger Moser wrote:

Meng Weng Wong wrote:

Should we change the spec to say that if the argument to an
"a" mechanism is obviously an IP address, we interpret it as
ip4 / ip6?

No. As has been brought up, though, the confusion probably exists because of DNS A records. So, while people should still have RTFM-ed, I can understand the mistake (you could perhaps even say that, for this reason, the choice of "a" to represent a domain name, instead of its namesake A record, was somewhat unfortunate).

I have no problem with allowing ip4/ip6 to mean ipv4/ipv6 (provided this is clearly stated in the specs). Because, in that case, you are still referring to the same type of argument; whereas "a" to mean "IP address" crosses an untolerable boundary.

Is "a:2O9.223.237.l94" obviously an IP address?

To a machine, yes.

(Note: Letters "O" and "l" instead of digits "0" and "1").

That is, to a machine the above address is obviously NOT an IP address. :)

- Mark

       System Administrator Asarian-host.org

---
"If you were supposed to understand it,
we wouldn't call it code." - FedEx