Re: [netmod] [Technical Errata Reported] RFC6020 (4911)

[Lou Berger <[e-mail]>]

Martin,


On 1/18/2017 8:55 AM, Martin Bjorklund wrote:
> RFC Errata System <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> The following errata report has been submitted for RFC6020,
>> "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the Network Configuration
>> Protocol (NETCONF)".
>>
>> --------------------------------------
>> You may review the report below and at:
>> http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata_search.php?rfc=6020&eid=4911
>>
>> --------------------------------------
>> Type: Technical
>> Reported by: Ladislav Lhotka <[e-mail]>
>>
>> Section: 6.1.3
>>
>> Original Text
>> -------------
>> Within a double-quoted string (enclosed within " "), a backslash
>> character introduces a special character, which depends on the
>> character that immediately follows the backslash:
>>
>>  \n      new line
>>  \t      a tab character
>>  \"      a double quote
>>  \      a single backslash
>>
>>
>> Corrected Text
>> --------------
>> Within a double-quoted string (enclosed within " "), a backslash
>> character introduces a special character, which depends on the
>> character that immediately follows the backslash:
>>
>>  \n      new line
>>  \t      a tab character
>>  \"      a double quote
>>  \      a single backslash
>>
>> The backslash MUST NOT be followed by any other character.
>>
>> Notes
>> -----
>> The text doesn't state whether other characters may follow the
>> backslash, and if yes, what it means. Existing implementations have
>> used three approaches:
>>
>> 1. report an error if another character follows the backslash
>> 2. keep only the character following the backslash, i.e., for example,
>> "\x" is the same as "x".
>> 3. keep both the backslash and the character following it.
>>
>> This ambiguity is undesirable and YANG 1.1 [RFC 7950] explicitly
>> adopted option #1. However, many modules are still being written using
>> YANG version 1.0, so it is important to clarify this issue in RFC 6020
>> as well.
> I don't think this errata should be accepted.  As stated, the spec is
> unclear, and YANG 1.1 has fixed this problem.  But it is not clear
> that the original intention when RFC 6020 was written was #1.
> Accepting this errata now would make existing implementations and
> modules invalid.
>
> The solution moving forward is to use YANG 1.1.
>

IMO this highlights why 1.1 probably should have at least been
identified as updating 1.0...

I have no idea that it would take to just change this, but I suspect it
might be a new RFC.  I'll ask the rfc-editor about the process (no
change being made at this time...)

Lou
> /martin
>