RFC 2253

[Scott Seligman <Scott.Seligman@Eng.Sun.COM>]

Mark,

There are a few minor inconsistencies and ambiguities in RFC 2253.
Could you please give a (semi-)official clarification?

The first ambiguity is in Section 4, where it states that the ','
separator may have whitespace present on either side of it.

1.  What is the precise meaning of "whitespace" as used here?


I noticed the following inconsistencies in the spec, where the rules
for formating a string in Section 2 result in a string that cannot be
parsed by the grammar in Section 3.

2.  Section 2.4 allows the '=' character to appear in a value
    unescaped.  For example:
	CN=x=y
    This violates the grammar in section 3.

3.  Section 2.4 allows the '#' character to appear in a value
    unescaped, as long as it is not the value's first character.
    For example:
	CN=a#b
    This violates the grammar in section 3.

For both of the above two inconsistencies, I believe that the
cleanest resolution is to consider the grammar to be correct, and
section 2.4 to be incorrect (or incomplete).


The following are related to the earlier issue about whitespace:

4.  Section 2.4 allows values that end with characters such as
    tab (HT) or carriage return (CR) to appear in the formated string
    unescaped.  For example:
	CN=ab	,OU=cd			// value of CN is "ab<HT>"
	,C=US				// value of OU is "cd<CR>"
    If such characters are considered to be whitespace, then the rule
    in Section 4 about ignoring whitespace will result in an
    incorrectly parsed string.

5.  Section 2.4 allows values that begin with a carriage return to
    appear in the formated string unescaped.  For example:
	CN=
	ab				// value of CN is "<CR>ab"
    The rule in Section 4 allowing (requiring?) the parsing of
    RFC-1779-compliant string names leads to the carriage return
    being lost when the string is parsed.

The cleanest resolution here, I believe, is to not allow whitespace
to appear unescaped either at the beginning or at the end of a
value.  Carriage return should be included among the whitespace
characters.


Thanks.


Scott Seligman
Java Software Engineering
Sun Microsystems