> In that case, maybe it would be better just to take another byte for a type > indicator. For example, S = string, N = number, B = boolean. Then we > wouldn't have to perform escaping and it would be more flexible if we > eventually wanted to add new types. e.g. > > Field1=Ssomestring > Field2=N3a372f83 > Field3=Btrue
Ick and double ick. The data type and interpretation of field values is already 100% completely specified by NAME. If you don't already know the type of a field by its name, you shouldn't be reading it. This just generates another source of errors: now I have to write code that not only grabs a field by name, but now I have to check whether the type matches what I expect. If you think you need data types so that a code layer interposed between the code that reads the message and the code that uses the fields can do conversions, that's just a layer of code that doesn't need to be there. -- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC _______________________________________________ Freenet-dev mailing list Freenet-dev at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-dev
