Re: Binary Syntax

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

At 04:31 PM 2001-12-18, Ramsay, Ron wrote:
>You're right, that ;binary option was a bad idea. In effect, it only applies
>to attributes which have an ASN.1 syntax. Other binary syntaxes, like audio,
>jpeg and binary, don't take it.

Obviously the word 'binary' is a bit overloaded.  I prefer
refer to the audio, jpeg, and binary as constrained octet string
syntaxes.  It can be argued their ASN.1 data definitions are:
        audio ::= OCTET STRING ; constrained to a u-law format (pilot schema)
        jpeg  ::= OCTET STRING ; constrained to a jpeg photo (LDAPv2 schema)

and, likewise for binary:
        binary ::= OCTET STRING ; constrained to BER encoded data

>The notion that binary could mean octet
>string may have been a misinterpretation of the ASN.1

Could be... or it could assumed to like the many other constrained
octet string syntaxes.

>RFC 2251 seems, on reflection, to confuse elements of protocol with elements of the data model.

Every properly defined LDAP syntax has an associated ASN.1 data type definition.  If it omitted, implementors will guess and this will
lead to interoperability problems.  The LDAPbis document should
eliminate the guess work.

>Getting rid of everything with the word 'binary' in it would draw no
>criticism from me,

Noted.

>but what about the previous LAW regarding certificates?

I'm not sure what you mean by LAW, but...

The X.509 certificate schema will dropped from the next revision
of the syntax and schema I-Ds per previously gauged WG consensus.

Currently there is no proposal to remove the ;binary transfer
option.  You are welcomed to make such a proposal.