# allowable variations in URNs

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Thu, 3 Mar 1994 12:38:39 PST

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    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: allowable variations in URNs

    From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

    Message-Id: <94Mar3.123841pst.2732@golden.parc.xerox.com>

    Date: 	Thu, 3 Mar 1994 12:38:39 PST

>1)Two URN's are `the same URN' only if they are spelled the same.
> In particular, URNs are case sensitive, have no
> optional parts that default, and have no alternative encodings.

I had a private message about case sensitivity in URNs. It made me
think that in the interest of human transcribability that URNs should
be `case insentitive' (E.g., that if someone types one with upper
case, it should be translated to a lower case), and possibly even that
some of the punctuation marks should be optional (e.g., if ISBN
numbers appear with or without the hyphens.)

This is an area where two requirements (simple comparison method, vs.
human transcribability) might be in conflict, and the actual
specification should try to find a reasonable compromise.

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