Re: [Tzdist] AD review of draft-ietf-tzdist-service-07 - Section 5

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

Thanks, Cyrus.  Almost all set here.

>> -- Section 5.5 --
>> The explanation of pattern matching with "*" does not explain what
>> happens if you put the wildcard character in the middle of the string.
>> If I use "x*z", is that an error (with
>> urn:ietf:params:tzdist:error:invalid-pattern
>> )?  If so, you should say that explicitly.  If not, what does it do?
>
>
> I'll add a statement that "*" MUST only appear at the start or end of the
> string, and use anywhere else MUST result in an error.

That works.  I'd prefer it be worded as "MUST NOT appear in the middle
of the string", because I find the "MUST only" construct to be
confusing use of 2119 language.  But I'm not going to die on that
hill.

>>       To match characters 0x2A ("*") and 0x5C
>>       ("\") in the pattern, a single 0x5C ("\") is prepended to act as
>>       an "escaping" mechanism. i.e., a pattern "Test\*" implies an exact
>>       match test against the string "Test*".
>>
>> *** How is a query for "*New York*" (in the text above) done?  You
>> can't send the space character in the GET command without making it
>> "%20", and the mechanism for sending patterns doesn't appear to allow
>> %-encoding.
>
> I think percent encoding and decoding of the ?pattern URI query parameter is
> implicit in the nature of URI processing. However, I will make the following
> change as a reminder of that fact:
>
>    Pattern match strings (which have to be %-encoded and then decoded when
>    used in the URI query parameter) have the following options:

Ahhhh, I see why I was confused.  So *after* all %-decoding, you still
have to have 0x2A and 0x5C escaped.  Got it now.  Yes, saying
something about that would help others who are similarly challenged.

Barry