The IP over ATM Mailing List Archive by date

[Uttam Shikarpur <uttam@zk3.dec.com>]

Mark,
	If i understand this right some of our current implementations
would not be compatible with new revised RFC1577. If an implementation
used the length as an offset to get to the next field, but the field
existed being zero-filled with the length indicating zero, we would get the
wrong field. Why don't we pad the fields, leave the length to indicate
the length of the field even if it zero-filled and use the operation to 
determine which field is relevant?
i.e if ar$spln is 4 then the corresponding ar$spa has 4 bytes (zero-filled
or otherwise).  The validity of the values can be determined by the context
of the ar$op.

Does anybody else see this as an interoperatbility problem?

Thanks
uttam
********************************************
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 95 19:41:51 EST
From: dwcosby@vnet.ibm.com
To: ip-atm@matmos.hpl.hp.com
Subject: length fields in (In)ATMARP
Status: R

Just another opinion, but I second the motion.

David




 > >> I'd prefer it if we set ar$spln = 0 (or ar$tpln = 0) to indicate
 > >> null protocol addresses, rather than a zero-filled but non-zero length
 > >> address.
 > >
 > >That's an opinion to use the length.  Other comments?
 > >
 > An opinion, yes, but a reasonable one I'd say ;-).

 Noted.  I see your's in the only comment on this today.