> I assume that if the Line ID is going to be opaque we don't need to
> define how to encode strings in it.  Suresh's email wasn't clear on
> that, if I understood it correctly.

The problem with this is if the field actually holds a string, you
have to define a canonical representation for the  string. It's just
not sufficient to say it is a "string" or a "UTF-8 string", etc. You
won't get interoperability with that.

This is something *ALL* IETF protocols are starting to grapple with,
if they allow protocol fields to hold strings, and one has to compare
those strings for equality.

> I still would like it to be an opaque field as that keeps it aligned
> with the DHCP option.

The DHCP format was specified many years ago... the world is more
complex today...

If we say specifically the opague field is not a "string", this issue
probably goes away. But I think we need to ask the users of this
option whether that is OK.

Thomas

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