Bill,
Some think that this problem space is so small it's not worth it; I think it's at least worth throwing out a strawman and seeing what happens to it, especially since this proposal includes a modification to the grammar for zone IDs in draft-ietf-ipv6-scoping-arch; better to do that before it gets published as an RFC if we're going to.
I agree that doing this is worthwhile even for the few cases where it will be used.
A few comments on the tradeoffs.
2.1 Tradeoffs
o Use _ or Z or some other character as separator. Pro: + Fits current ABNF. + Doesn't require confusing percent-encoding. Con: + Have to remember different separator. + Can't copy and paste from other forms. (But that is the case also for percent-encoding, which usually doesn't happen automatically.)
I think loosing the ability to cut and paste these addresses is a problem. The % is in widespread usage today. For example from the machine I am typing on:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : americas.nokia.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0D-60-2F-8D-F5
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.19.69.87
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::20d:60ff:fe2f:8df5%4
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.19.69.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.18.140.14
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.18.140.17
172.18.241.9
131.228.6.22
fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.241.36.9
Secondary WINS Server . . . . . . : 10.241.36.8
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : November 19, 2004 08:41:58 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : November 22, 2004 08:41:58 AMIt would be much better if these addresses could be cut/paste without having to also convert the % to something else.
Issues:
+ Zone ID is currently loosely specified in scoping-arch; in
order to fit this grammar it needs to be tighter.
+ Should "_" (or whatever delimiter) be allowed in the zone
ID? ("No" complicates the ABNF)
+ Can a scoping-arch revision change the character in use? It
could suggest that "_" can be used as an alternative to "%".
As above, the "%" is current usage.
o Use %25 as an encoded %, the scoping-arch separator.
Pro:
+ "%" is the same character.
Con:
+ "%25" is confusing.
+ Can't copy and paste from other forms where the % is not
encoded. (But that is the case also when using a different
character for the separator.)
+ IPvFuture ABNF doesn't permit percent-encoded characters.
Agree this is very ugly and IMHO worse than "-".
My dump question (that exposes my lack of knowledge about URIs/etc.) is since the literal IPv6 address are enclosed in "[" "]" to allow for the ":" in the literal IPv6 address, why can't the "%" be used in the same way? For example:
http://[fe80::20d:60ff:fe2f:8df5%4]
Please excuse my ignorance on this, but it would be good to explain this (and include this information in the draft).
Thanks, Bob
The I-D announcement follows. It's quite short, so please take a look.
Thanks,
Bill & Martin.
----- Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-fenner-literal-zone-00.txt Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:14:29 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Title : A Format for IPv6 Scope Zone Identifiers in Literal URIs Author(s) : B. Fenner, M. Duerst Filename : draft-fenner-literal-zone-00.txt Pages : 9 Date : 2004-11-18
This document specifies the format to be used when specifying a zone identifier with a literal IPv6 address in URIs and IRIs. While this combination is expected to be needed rarely, it is important to specify the exact syntax.
A URL for this Internet-Draft is:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-fenner-literal-zone-00.txt
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