Re: [yang-doctors] reference in import statement

[Martin Bjorklund <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Mahesh Jethanandani <[e-mail]> wrote:
> I agree that this is grounds for confusion. 
> 
> My preference would be that we NOT have a reference statement for
> import, or a comment for that matter, unless the module is doing
> import by revision. The text of the document is already required to
> have normative references to whatever the module imports.

I think this would be quite unfortunate, even though I agree that it
might be confusing to have the reference.  The problem with having
the reference only in the main body is that modules are typically
extracted from the RFCs and live their own life.  So all you have is a
list of various imported modules, and it is not obvious where to find
them.

We added the "reference" statement to "import" for this very reason in
YANG 1.1.

So maybe the best solution is the one suggested by Juergen initially:

    reference "RFC 6991: Common YANG Data Types
                 (at the time of this writing)";


Or maybe we declare that in fact this is not confusing (or at least it
is not a major issue) - people are aware of the fact that documents
evolve, and that there might be a more recent version available.


/martin

> 
> Cheers.
> 
> > On Feb 15, 2018, at 12:31 AM, Juergen Schoenwaelder
> > <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have just seen this pattern
> > 
> >   import ietf-inet-types {
> >     prefix "inet";
> >     reference "RFC 6991";
> >   }
> > 
> > and I wonder how people understand this. From the way this import
> > works, any (newer) version of ietf-inet-types is OK to use to resolve
> > the import but I could see that this statement makes people believe
> > they have to use the version of ietf-inet-types contained in RFC 6991
> > (but then this should have been import by revision). I know that we
> > had a common practice to have comments before this was possible, like
> > 
> >   import ietf-inet-types {             // RFC 6991
> >     prefix "inet";
> >   }
> > 
> > but then this was a comment, now the RFC numbers becomes part of the
> > definition. Should we be concerned about this? Or should we suggest
> > to be more clear about this, e.g.:
> > 
> >   import ietf-inet-types {
> >     prefix "inet";
> >     reference "RFC 6991 (at the time of this writing)";
> >   }
> > 
> > /js
> > 
> > -- 
> > Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
> > Phone: [phone]         Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
> > Fax:   [phone]         <https://www.jacobs-university.de/>
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > yang-doctors mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/yang-doctors
> 
> Mahesh Jethanandani
> [e-mail]
> 
> _______________________________________________
> yang-doctors mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/yang-doctors
>