Re: Empty IA5String

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

At 07:26 PM 11/9/2004, Steven Legg wrote:
>For the record, I don't care whether IA5 String syntax is constrained to have
>at least one character. However, I increasingly believe that stringprep should
>be able to produce a zero-length string as input to a matching function. 

I assume what you mean here is that you are increasing
believing that LDAPprep should be redesigned to accept
as input an zero-length string and output a zero-length
string for this input.

This would require a major redesign of the algorithm.

If the designers of a particular matching rule desires
that zero-length input strings be matched as X strings
(where X is either a zero-length string or a particular
non-zero-length string, e.g. " "), the specification for
that rule should say something like:
        For non-zero-length input strings, the string
        is to prepared in accordance with LDAPprep.
        For zero-length input strings, no preparation
        is done.  The input string is used directly.
or:
        If the input string is zero-length, the string
        is matched as if X was inputted.  For input
        strings which are non-zero-length, the input
        string is prepared in accordance with LDAPprep
        before being compared.

I don't think we should undertake a redesign LDAPprep
to handle zero-length input string.