Null strings in LDAP

[egardner@mitre.org (Ella P. Gardner)]

Folks:

We have been translating the ASN.1 notation of the attributes in ACP 133 to
the notation used by LDAP. In several cases, zero-length strings could be
returned. When we look at the guidelines in RFC 822 and RFC 2252, it looks
as though strings cannot be zero-length. Is this true? Is there some way
around it?

In RFC 2252, we have:
    numericstring   = 1*d
    printablestring = 1*p

In RFC 822:
 2.4.  *RULE:  REPETITION

          The character "*" preceding an element indicates repetition.
     The full form is:

                             <l>*<m>element

     indicating at least <l> and at most <m> occurrences  of  element.
     Default values are 0 and infinity so that "*(element)" allows any
     number, including zero; "1*element" requires at  least  one;  and
     "1*2element" allows one or two.

Thanks!
Ella

Ella P. Gardner	               phone: +1 703 883 5826
The MITRE Corporation	         fax    +1 703 883 7142
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