Subject: comments in RPSL

From: Ramin Sepehr Rad <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 11:23:17 -0500 (EST)

RFC 2622 has this to say about comments in RPSL:

   An object's description may contain comments.  A comment can be
   anywhere in an object's definition, it starts at the first "#"
   character on a line and ends at the first end-of-line character.
   White space characters can be used to improve readability.

But does this mean that when an object is registered in a repository, the
comments should be removed?

My take is that a comment is for human, and should be ignored by a language
compiler/interpreter. So an object in a routing registry may contain comments,
but the RPSL interpreters which query the registries should ignore comments.

So if I submit the following maintainer object:

  mntner:		MNT-RAMINR
  descr:		4506 Daly Drive, Suite #200
  descr:		Chantilly, VA
  ...

it should NOT be registered in the repository as:

  mntner:		MNT-RAMINR
  descr:		4506 Daly Drive, Suite
  descr:		Chantilly, VA
  ...

It should be registered exactly the way it was submitted.

One implementation of a routing registry software that we have here is
removing comments from the objects.

I don't know, yet, how BIRD behaves.

-ramin

 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| Ramin Sepehr Rad              American Registry for Internet Numbers |
| [email-masked]                                      4506 Daly Drive |
| (703) 227-9876                                             Suite 200 |
| (703) 227-0676 (FAX)                             Chantilly, VA 20151 |
 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 09:39:34 -0800 (PST)

> comments should be removed?

No, it should not be removed. If it was to be removed, it would not
have been part of a standard.

> It should be registered exactly the way it was submitted.

exactly.

> I don't know, yet, how BIRD behaves.

It stores the object the way it was submitted.

> -ramin

Cengiz

-- 
Cengiz Alaettinoglu           Information Sciences Institute
http://www.isi.edu/~cengiz    University of Southern California

---

From: [email-masked] (Gerald Andrew Winters)
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 13:25:59 -0500 (EST)

Ramin,

Just to be clear I would like to add that the application
which you are using is not irrd.  Irrd conforms
to spec and does not remove comments from the object.

Actually I can resist pointing out that removing comments
from the object is useless, isn't it?  Because why
would one put in comments in the object in the first place?  That would
mean the comments would only exist for a short period in 
transit from the user to the DB.

--jerry