>You may doubt it, but Quanah is right: your dump utility violates the RFC.
please reread my earlier message: I do NOT doubt it violates the RFC (I know it does!). I'm sorry if a misread of what I wrote caused everyone to get the idea that I wasn't listening or understood Qaunah's email, and possibly caused a lack of sympathy for the situation I'm in and a lack of willingness to listen to my position... >I do not think that adding an option to accept this type of RFC violation >is the way to go, as it would be a precedent for further RFC-violations >(even if they were hidden behind options). >This way lies madness (or option hell). I'm not asking the maintainer to make a change that causes Net::LDAP to create anything that violates an RFC (I would absolutely agree with not going that direction). I am asking for a small change to be made to allow Net::LDAP to READ something that is in common use, but violates the RFC. Whether or not we like it, or if it violates our sense of purity, the use cases for dealing with software that does not follow standards is real, and sadly common. The model of "being strict on output, but allowing input of common violations" is not unheard of in these cases, and is useful in the real world. There is a middle road between strict adherance to the RFCs and allowing anarchy, and "liberal on input, strict on output" seems to be a pretty reasonable middle road. It allows Net::LDIF to be useful for more real world problems. I am asking everyone to think about that and see if it makes sense. >Instead, please get the dump utility fixed so that it adheres to the RFC. I don't have that kind of pull with IBM.
