Subject: Re: Human-readable notation language

From: [email-masked] ("Hal Finney")
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 10:51:32 -0700 (PDT)

David Shaw writes:
> Section 5.2.3.16 (Notation Data) has this:
>
>      First octet: 0x80 = human-readable. This note value is text, a
>                          note from one person to another, and need
>                          not have meaning to software.
>
> To my reading, this says more or less, "this is a note from one person
> to another except when it isn't".  Especially given such notations as
> [email-masked] which are always human-readable, I
> suggest this:
>
>      First octet: 0x80 = human-readable. This note value is text.
>
> It's just simpler.

I agree with David on this.  My interpretation of the human-readable
flag is not that it is a note from one person to another, but rather,
it is something that humans would be able to read.  It may well be
used purely for software purposes.

The practical implication is, when printing out signature fields in a
program like pgpdump, it is a reasonable idea to print out this notation
in text form.  If teh human-readable flag is not set, the notation should
be printed in binary form.

The semantics of the notation are entirely in its name field and not
related in any way to the human-readable flag, IMO.

Hal Finney