RE: [idn] compatibility chars in draft-ietf-idn-nameprep

[RJ Atkinson <rja@inet.org>]

At 12:23 16/08/00, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:

>Just to be clear, this is saying that the user interface can allow any input (which is the IETF way of doing things), but it MUST NOT pass any character that has a compatibility equivalent to the *input* of the nameprep step. Is this what folks are agreeing to?

        I don't understand your proposal in sufficient detail
to answer yes or no. 

        I think that mundane applications using the network
OUGHT NOT to have to know much about DNS rules, which specifically
means that I think it would be reasonable for some random application
to pass a prohibited character into the DNS resolver library's API.

        It would then be an implementation choice whether that 
particular resolver library converted the prohibited character 
into the fully equivalent legitimate character (with or without
notification to the application) or whether it returned an error 
(with or without details on which character was prohibited).

>For reference, I have compiled a list of all characters that have compatibility equivalents. The list can be found at <http://www.imc.org/compat-table.txt>.

        Thanks.

Ran
rja@inet.org