Re: iSCSI: Decimal encoding - why 64 bits ?

["Julian Satran \(Actcom\)" <Julian_Satran@actcom.net.il>]

If you fear about extended precision arithmetic you should carefully look at
what key=values are.
Precluding the use of large numerical values by forbidding their encoding is
not a good way of considering this - we have also base64 for large numbers
(and hex) and if you have to have a use for larger numbers you have to have
the arithmetic to handle it.

As for the second subject - forbidding the use decimals for binary strings -
we never discussed it or agreed on this.

I wonder how natural it will feel for somebody to have and IP address
encoded exclusively in hex, or a TargetPortalGroup appearing as decimal in a
directory and having to be transliterated.

Julo

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Studenmund" <wrstuden@wasabisystems.com>
To: "Julian Satran" <Julian_Satran@il.ibm.com>
Cc: <ips@ece.cmu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 12:22 AM
Subject: RE: iSCSI: Decimal encoding - why 64 bits ?


> On Tue, 2 Jul 2002, Julian Satran wrote:
>
> > It was never supposed to be removed. Many values are passed around as
> > decimal.
> > We can't make any progress if we keep hitting the same things
> > again-and-again after a decent consensus has been reached.
>
> The question is does the draft reflect the concensus that all the
> discussion participants thought they achieved?
>
> At least one other person had the same impression I did about the past
> discussion. i.e. we thought we HAD achieved concensus, and yet the draft
> does not reflect that discussion.
>
> > And none of you has brought an argument that was not heard and dismissed
> > before.
>
> When were these arguements dismissed? While I recall a lot of disagreement
> on points, I don't recall a sound dismissal on technical grounds.
>
> > Remember we moved from unlimited length decimal to 64 bit to alleviate
> > implementer fears.
>
> Julian, those fears were for something else. Those fears were for how do
> you deal with extended-precision math when reading a large number.
>
> These concerns are that decimal encoding of binary strings suffers from
> many of the problems that base64 had for numbers - the need to perform
> arithmetic to byte-string conversion (i.e. hotns() and htonl() & friends).
>
> Now that the text explicitly states that the string size is in whole
> bytes, things aren't as weird as before. But it's still messy. I'll post a
> seperate message on this.
>
> Take care,
>
> Bill
>