Subject: Re: iSCSI-related conclusions from Orlando interim Meeting

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 10:39:46 +0200

I think that David (Robinson) has a good point. I think that NDT would want
to say
text encoding in one of the C-language forms (0x'...' etc.) and those
include binaries etc.
The alternative is to allow only hex (not always nice nor readable).

Julo

David Robinson <[email-masked]> on 20/01/2001 03:11:35

Please respond to David Robinson <[email-masked]>

To:   [email-masked]
cc:
Subject:  Re: iSCSI-related conclusions from Orlando interim Meeting

[email-masked] wrote:
> It's a bit cryptic.  The conclusion in the room was
> to convert binary values to/from text representations
> for the purpose of negotiation (and use UTF-8 for the
> text).  This was felt to be simpler than defining new
> formats for binary values.

So if I want to send the binary data 0101101011110000
I first turn that into text "5AF0" then encode that into
UTF-8 "5AF0" (printable ASCII is a no-op in UTF-8)?

I'll buy that.

Any statement as to the text encoding? Hex? Decimal? Octal?

     -David

---

From: Glen Turner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:42:52 +1030

[email-masked] wrote:
> to say text encoding in one of the C-language forms (0x'...' etc.) and those
> include binaries etc.

Hi Julo,

Perhaps not the C method, as this has caused problems in the past
(most notoriously with scanning IP addresses).  The difference between
"10" and "010" isn't apparent to the typical author of a configuraton
file (one number is in decimal, the other number is in octal).
People that align strings by zero-filling them are burnt.

If using UTF-8 you may also want to constrain valid strings to the
shortest UTF-8 representation of the string[1].  This makes checking
for values much simpler and allows the writing of reliable regular
expressions:

  eg:  allow volumes in "*.example.au"

> The alternative is to allow only hex (not always nice nor readable).

Or decimal.  Probably better if values will propogate up into
configuration files.  One of the advantages of a textual representation
of numbers is that you can simply pass down the user's parameters
unaltered.  This allows additional parameters to be passed to the
server without the client needing to be updated.

Regards,
	Glen

[1]  I can't find the reference for the right word for
     "shortest", it might be a word like "canonical"
     instead?

---

From: Glen Turner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:42:52 +1030

Hi Julo,

Regards,
	Glen