Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!com.qz.se!P4403
From: P4403@com.qz.se
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Problem with mapping between RFC and X.400 adresses
Message-ID: <391323@QZCOM>
Date: 1 Feb 89 13:44:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ncis.llnl.gov
Reply-To: "Johan Lundberg TeleDelta (Swedish Telecom)" <P4403@com.qz.se>
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 23
Approved: post-x400@tis.llnl.gov

>X-Bitnet-Sender: "Johan Lundberg TeleDelta (Swedish Telecom)" <P4403@COM.QZ.SE> 

A serius problem has been discovered with the current RFC-987
mapping
of
X.400
addresses to domain address that is used by the
academic comunity. The problem is the usage of the separator "."
(punctuation mark, full stop) between the "attributes" in the domain address.
     
In an X.400 address the "." is a leagal character in any of the attributes.
Many organizations make use of this character in their names
If such an organisationName or orgUnitName is used mapping from X.400 to RFC
will cause problem since the routing will probably fail.
And trying to map a sucsessfully transformed but not routable address
back again to X.400 will also fail.
     
One could perhaps circumvent this if one knows about those that uses "."
in thier names, but that will only work for the known ones and will make a
gateway more complex.
     
Has this been discussed and is there a solution to this problem?