Re: [urn] Request for the NID 'ddi'

[[e-mail]]

"Joachim Wackerow" <[e-mail]> writes:
> Please find attached an URN namespace registration request for DDI, Data
> Documentation Initiative (NID 'ddi').

The document draft-urn-ddi-01.txt was attached to your message, but that
document contains only sections 3.4.4 and following.

Based on the draft-urn-ddi-01.pdf:

Generally, the document is quite well done.  Some specific issues are:

    ; agency-identifier is case-insensitive. See [RFC4343] section 2.
    ; For allowed characters see [RFC1035] section 2.3.1.
    ; For length restrictions see [RFC2181] section 11.
    agency-identifier = 1*255( top-level-domain
                               sub-separator ddi-authority-id
                               *(sub-separator ddi-sub-authority-id)
                             )
    top-level-domain = dns-label
    ddi-authority-id = dns-label
    ddi-sub-authority-id = dns-label

I think you want to remove the "1*255( ... )" -- that means "repeat the
stuff inside the parentheses from 1 to 255 times".  I think you're
trying to use it to mean "the total length of this string must be from 1
to 255 characters", but that's not what it means.  You would need to
state a length limit in a comment, or leave it to be implied by the
reference to RFC 2181.

    dns-label = 1*63( (ALPHA / DIGIT) [
                      *(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-")
                      (ALPHA / DIGIT)
                      ] )

I think this is another example of the same issue.

    resource-identifier = restricted-string
                          *(restricted-string / "/")
    version-identifier = restricted-string
                         *(restricted-string / "/")
    restricted-string = 1*( unreserved / sub-delims / "@")

I don't think the first two definitions are what you mean.  What they
mean is "a restricted-string, followed by zero or more things which are
either restricted-strings or slashes".  When you sort it all out, it is
equivalent to

    resource-identifier = ( unreserved / sub-delims / "@" )
                          *( unreserved / sub-delims / "@" / "/")

In particular, that allows two slashes to be adjacent in
resource-identifier (as long as they aren't the first two characters).

It's more likely you want:

    resource-identifier = restricted-string
                          *("/" restricted-string)

That is, a resource-identifier is a sequence of one or more
restricted-strings, separated by slashes.

Parallel changes would be needed in section 3.4.3.

In section 3.4.4 "Examples", it might be useful to note that the DDI
URNs of Represented Variables etc. are not syntactically distinct.
Although if the distinction between these categories of resources is
important in the DDI universe, you might mention how, if one possesses a
DDI URN, one would determine what category it belongs to.

Dale