Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!SUN.COM!pv
From: pv@SUN.COM (Peter Vanderbilt)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re: Problem with mapping between RFC and X.400 adresses
Message-ID: <8902011758.AA16344@polya.sun.com>
Date: 1 Feb 89 17:58:23 GMT
Sender: daemon@ncis.llnl.gov
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27
Approved: post-x400@tis.llnl.gov

>  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.

Attributes with a "." in them should not be mapped to the domain part
of the address but must be kept in the local part (using the
"/attr=value/" syntax).  The only attributes appearing in the domain
part must be in the domain syntax.

RFC 987 section 4.2.4, mapping B, point 2:

    Following the 4.3.1 hierarchy, if each successive
    component exists, and conforms to the syntax
    EBNF.domain-syntax (as defined in 4.3.1), allocate the
    next subdomain.

The reference to 4.3.1 should be 4.2.1:

     domain-syntax   = ALPHA [ *alphanumhyphen alphanum ]
     alphanum        = <ALPHA or DIGIT>
     alphanumhyphen  = <ALPHA or DIGIT or HYPHEN>

Pete