Re: iSCSI - decimal coded binary strings - a proposed resolution

[Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@wasabisystems.com>]

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, Julian Satran wrote:

> Considering the widespread use of decimal encoding and the perceived
> difficulty of mapping them to a binary  string
> - mainly due to the difficulty of matching lengths I suggest the
> following:
>
> Decimal encoding for binary strings will be used only where the length of
> the binary string is explicitly defined (by a constant or a rule that does
> not use the encoding itself)

This sounds like a good resolution of the problem. You've cleaned up the
part I despised about using decimal numbers for binary strings - the fact
that we want to derive the length from the number, which isn't so easy for
them. :-)

> The definition for decimal constant becomes:
>
> decimal-constant: an unsigned decimal number - the digit 0 or a string of
> 1 or more digits starting with a non-zero digit. This encoding is not used
> for numerical values equal or greater than 2**64. Decimal-constants are
> used to encode numerical values or binary strings. Decimal constants can
> be used to encode binary strings only if the stringlength is explicitly
> specified. There is no implicit length for deci-mal strings.

I think that'll be fine.

Take care,

Bill