Ah, I suspected I was missing something.  "|" here is used for alternation,
not concatenation, I (now) gather.  The existing text makes sense.

Probably no clarification is required for readers who are actually
implementers.  I suppose if someone wanted to add text then just a simple
parenthetical " (here '|' is used for alternation, not concatenation)"
would suffice.  But I've no strong feelings.

Thanks for the clue!

On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 6:16 PM Benjamin Kaduk <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 28, 2020 at 10:50:20PM -0800, Erik Kline via Datatracker wrote:
> > Erik Kline has entered the following ballot position for
> > draft-ietf-tls-external-psk-importer-06: No Objection
> >
> > When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
> > email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
> > introductory paragraph, however.)
> >
> >
> > Please refer to
> https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html
> > for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
> >
> >
> > The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
> > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-external-psk-importer/
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > COMMENT:
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > [[ questions ]]
> >
> > [ section 4.2 ]
> >
> > * I'm insufficiently versed in TLS and HKDF to know for sure, but the
> text
> >   about "replace the string" and the diagrammed example don't seem to
> agree,
> >   **to my untrained eye**.  The example seems to show "imp binder"
> perhaps
> >   concatenated with the "standard" sequence, rather than "imp binder"
> >   /replacing/ "ext binder".
> >
> >   Am I way off base here? In other words, should
> >
> >     "ext binder" | "res binder" | "imp binder"
> >
> >   actually be (if I understand the use of the word "replace" correctly):
> >
> >     "imp binder" | "res binder"
> >
> >   ?
>
> I guess https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8446#section-7.1 does not cover
> this
> very well either, but the '|' notation is just shorthand for "there are
> multiple outputs, produced by using the different values as this input
> field".  It's not concatenation, just a different output corresponding to
> the different case of protocol operation.
>
> Suggestions for how to clarify that would, of course, be most welcome!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben
>
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