Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!uci-ics!gateway From: Christian.Huitema@mirsa.inria.fr (Christian Huitema) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400 Subject: Re: Dutch names in X.400 and/or RFC 1148 Message-ID: <9006110754.AA02686@jerry.inria.fr> Date: 11 Jun 90 08:17:06 GMT Lines: 41 Approved: usenet@PARIS.ICS.UCI.EDU In-Reply-To: Your message of 10 Jun 90 17:24:15 +0100. <9006100946.aa15786@NRI.NRI.Reston.VA.US> >If embedded blanks are converted to underscores on entry >into the RFC822 Internet and converted back to embedded >blanks on return into the X.400 world, what is done with >addressees in the X.400 environment which contain >underscores? 1) Underscore is not a valid ``Printable string'' character. As far as X.400(84) is concerned, all OR-naming attribute, including DD attributes, have either a NumericString or PrintableString syntax. Underscore cannot be legally present in this case. 2) If you plan to use X.400(88), the underscore can only ``validly'' be found when the syntax of the X.400 attribute is either ``IA5'' (0x5F) or ``T61''. This could be the case either in the T.61 representation of a standard attribute, or in a particular extension. The escape mechanism of RFC-1148 should be applied there, i.e. represent the T.61 character 0x5F by the escape sequence "{095}". In short: underscores cannot be legally present in current X.400 ORNames. Their usage by MCI is a protocol violation. It probably results from a direct transposition in X.400 attributes of some internal MCI addresses; that transposition should be done more cleverly, e.g. by mapping the MCI underscores to X.400 spaces. One will never repeat too loud that the current RFC-1148, on that point, stinks. It tries to enforce a mapping (of X.400 spaces to RFC-822 spaces) which requires the quoting mechanism. As the usage of quotes is hardly supported by some networks, e.g. UUCP and DECNET, a companion RFC (1137) has been defined which allows the conversion of space to underscores. Which means that the same ORName will be converted to <"van der Steen"@foodam.nl> if it passes through a RFC conformant X.400 to SMTP gateway, and to if it passes first through a X.400 to UUCP gateway, to be relayed to SMTP later. Hourrah! Christian Huitema PS. Back to the initial point. If "Piet van der Steen" should be sorted as "steen" rather than "vandersteen", then the convention in French libraries would be to enter it as