If there were a fixed number of options with a fixed length and order, the packet would be very simple to parse as the data fields would be at the same offset in the buffer each time.

The receiver could check the option type, length and other unchanging bytes at their fixed offsets and if anything doesn't match the fixed values, reject the packet.

I think this would save several hundred bytes and make testing simpler.

There would need to be two types of e.g. NS, host to LR and LR to LBR but it would be easy to distinguish these.

Any future options could be added after the ones that are mandated in the current specification.

Daniel.


Richard Kelsey wrote:
From: Ralph Droms <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:52:07 -0400

How, exactly, would specifying the order make any difference to an implementation in terms of:

* code size and complexity

If two options interact in any way, the code to process them
is simpler if they appear in a fixed order.  The degree to
which a fixed order simplifies the code depends on the
degree of interaction between the various options.

* processing time

No appreciable difference.

* interoperability

Sending the options in the right order, and testing that
they are sent in the right order, is trivial.  Testing
that the order in which they appear in incoming messages
is irrelevant is much harder.

Seems to me such a requirement would reduce interoperability with existing implementations.

Absolutely. This only makes sense if there are there no existing deployments. Given the freshness of 6LoWPAN ND
I am not sure that this is an issue.

                                -Richard Kelsey
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