Re: iSCSI - decimal coded binary strings - a proposed resolution

[Paul Koning <ni1d@arrl.net>]

Sorry, I meant to reply earlier.

>>>>> "Julian" == Julian Satran <Julian_Satran@il.ibm.com> writes:

 >> 2. On the other hand, for numbers, the proposed rule says
 >> that you can encode the value in decimal whenever the value
 >> happens to be less than 2**64.  If 5 minutes later that same
 >> parameter happens to have a value 2**64 or greater, then you
 >> cannot encode that particular value in decimal.  So the
 >> encoding rule here is tied to the value, not the parameter; a
 >> given parameter sometimes permits decimal and sometimes not.

 >> That's what I meant: it is extra complexity to have an
 >> encoding rule for a variable that isn't the same for all
 >> possible values of the variable.

 Julian> +++ that is only an issue for the encoder - and encoding is
 Julian> not an issue for any of the encoding methods - you send
 Julian> starting (supposedly) from an internal value of defined
 Julian> length and may use whatever is fit but we may tight the rule
 Julian> to allowed values not actual values.  Is that acceptable?
 Julian> +++

No, the issue is in the decoder.

If I have a bignum parameter, I have to be prepared to get a decimal
encoding coming in.  I'd have to feed that to atoi() (or its 64-bit
equivalent), take the resulting 64-bit value and supply the high order
0 bits to store it into my bigger-than-64-bits variable.

That's extra work for no purpose.

       paul