On Tue Nov 18 05:50:34 2008, Justin Karneges wrote:
On Monday 17 November 2008 16:33:42 Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> Note: The format used for publishing the TXT record value to the
mDNS
> daemon depends on the mDNS daemon in use, and might not follow the
> binary format described here (e.g., it might consist of a series
of
> quoted strings, one for each parameter).
Humm, there is something goofy about this text.
At the high level, a TXT record holds a list of strings; it's a
container for
a string list. It should be enough for XEP-174 to simply say, "the
TXT
record must contain the following strings..." and be done with it.
It
shouldn't need to detail out the actual binary representation of
the TXT
record.
Agreed.
To put it in perspective, XEP-174 also states what should go into
an SRV
record (host, port, priority, weight), but it doesn't discuss the
binary
format of SRV. If anyone cares about how TXT or SRV records get
formatted,
they can read other specs to find out.
And also agreed.
This is one of the failings of the DNS-SD spec itself, too, which is
currently in Last Call in the IETF. It's actually entirely due to the
DNS-SD specification that the entire mess arose in the first place,
and I've argued (in the IETF) that the specification ought to be
pulled as a result.
Actually, I've argued that it ought to be pulled and reworked into a
Standards Track document, too, because of its importance to
specifications like XEP-0174, and the P2PSIP equivalents.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't explain the
binary
representation of any of the record types. Instead, stick to high
level
explanations, which readers can then apply in concept to their
relevant
programming interfaces. That text-based zone file notation you're
already
using should suffice as a high level explanation. Nobody's
actually going to
use that zone file notation in their programming, but they should
be able to
read it and figure out what you mean.
+3.1415927
People can use the dig tool to extract zone-file-like formatting from
mDNS and/or uDNS DNS-SD records, and see what the data is actually
saying for debugging etc, which makes zone file format very
convenient.
Dave.
--
Dave Cridland - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - xmpp:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- acap://acap.dave.cridland.net/byowner/user/dwd/bookmarks/
- http://dave.cridland.net/
Infotrope Polymer - ACAP, IMAP, ESMTP, and Lemonade
