Re: KeyName white space

I'm not particularly motivated either way on this (moreso
on dnames), but if we leave things unchanged I'd suggest
that we add a sentence stating that whitespace surrounding
the value of a KeyName _is_ significant.

Apps with damagable key names could always surround their
keyinfo names with quotes - after all, they have to conform
their key names to valid XML characters. But that's probably
more ugly than leaving things the way they are.

Merlin

r/bal@microsoft.com/2001.05.15/11:22:45
>While I understand the sentiment behind this proposal, I believe it
>would be a mistake.  We have specified that KeyName is a String value
>whose semantic meaning is defined solely by the sender & recipient.
>It's a transport mechanism for a string, that's all -- any rules about
>proper format, contents, etc., thus are application-specific.
>
>I can all too easily envision, unfortunately, scenarios for KeyName
>where automatically stripping off white space would break
>interoperability.  Consider the case where the KeyName is actually a
>filename telling the recipient where to look in a local key cache for
>the verification key.  Filenames on many operating systems can have
>spaces in them, including leading spaces.  Alternatively, suppose that
>the value of KeyName was used as a database lookup key, and it was
>space-padded to be of fixed length.
>
>(Here's another example, although specific to Microsoft.  On Win32
>platforms, it is likely that folks would use KeyName to store CryptoAPI
>key container names.  Rules for container name validity are defined by
>each algorithm implementation (crypto service provider -- CSP).  A
>limitation like this could create all sorts of weird behaviors...)
>
>Let's leave KeyName as just a string.
>
>                    --bal


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Received on Wednesday, 16 May 2001 09:19:56 UTC