# Re: Uniform Resource Names - almost draft

Patrik Faltstrom (paf@nada.kth.se)
Thu, 13 Oct 1994 19:38:33 +0100

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    Message-Id: <aac32be60a0210041f94@[130.237.225.201]>

    Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 19:38:33 +0100

    To: Martin Hamilton <martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>

    From: paf@nada.kth.se (Patrik Faltstrom)

    Subject: Re: Uniform Resource Names - almost draft

At 12.24 94-10-13, Martin Hamilton wrote:

>I was going by draft-ietf-wnils-whois-arch-01.txt, which
>says (p.17):

> (Note: The name HANDLE can be replaced with the shortname '!')
>
>Is there a more recent version of the spec ?

Ooops...that is correct. I must wait for the editor, Richard Schoultz,
to comment this. I think the wnils working group said at last that
all shortnames should be removed. The '!' might have been saved, but
I have to wait for a comment from Richard or Chris Weider on this.

>So, my minimal URN lookup scenario (via 'handle') right now
>would be something like this...
>
>
>success:
>
> % 220-whois++ server cuppat, LUT mini_whois++ 1.0
> % 220-only understands handle and urn lookups!!
> % 220 your mileage may vary
> handle="urn:iana:rfc:1490"
> % 200 command ok
> # FULL 1
> # URN cuppat:rfc1490
> URN:IANA:rfc:1490
> URL:ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1490.txt
> URL:ftp://nis.nsf.net/internet/documents/rfc/rfc1490.txt
> URL:ftp://nisc.jvnc.net/RFC1490.TXT.1
> URL:ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1490.txt
> URL:ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/info/rfc/rfc1490.txt.Z
> URL:ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/rfc1490.txt.Z
> URL:ftp://ftp.concert.net/rfc/rfc1490.txt
> URL:ftp://ftp.sesqui.net/pub/rfc/rfc1490.txt
> # END
> % 226 transfer complete
> % 203 toodle pip

I can see some problems with this:

1) You are not able to include the actual handle name (the URN) in
a centroid, so you will not get all information you want, i.e.
no servers-to-ask response.

2) The implementor of a Whois++ server is forced to use the URN as
a handle, which is not the case every time. Me myself is using the
handle as a direct index into the database, so the handle can change
when the database is rebuilt.

The best thing is, I think, to store a "template URN" which have an
attribute named "URN" and one or more URL-attributes.

By doing this one does not have to explicitly handle the
template URN in the server or queries for URNs.

A query should look like:

URN="IANA:rfc:1490"

The drawback (you have to search for a specific attribute and then
later get the handle) might not be more expensive. In my server there
is no difference in CPU cycles when searching for a certain attribute
and a handle, part from that the Handle might be a unique index which
in fact can make the search a little bit faster.

So, I vote for skipping the special handling of searches for URN's.

paf

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