Re: Cross-purpose SEQUENCE/CHOICE protocol extension fields

[Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no>]

Steven Legg writes:
> ASN.1 doesn't have a requirement that tag numbers have to be
> ascending.  It is perfectly legal for LDAPResult to have a new
> component with tag, say, [50].  (...)

If one does not know that the peer recognizes an LDAPResult extension,
can that extension be used at all in COMPONENTS OF LDAPResult followed
by some other element?  My guess is no, unless COMPONENTS OF for some
reason is an exception to 'known elements precede unknown elements'.
Even if an extension is standardized, that doesn't mean the peer is
updated to recognize that new standard.


My impression from this thread, with some liberal guessing about what
the ASN.1 speak means:-) is that the BindAuthData and ModifyChangeData
extensions I suggested seem useful, and that a similar extension to
LDAPResult would have been useful if it had been in the standard.
Though one could define it + an extension (either an ASN.1 field or a
control) for clients to inform servers which extensions they recognize.

-- 
Hallvard