How do you negotiate a numerical range?

[Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@wasabisystems.com>]

I think I know the answer, but wanted to double check as AFAICT all the
numbers we have in the spec are either MIN or MAX; I suspect not much code
is using numerical ranges at the moment. Also, the spec doesn't say
anything about negotiating ranges AFAICT. :-)

Question 1:

Since all of the numbers we have are MIN or MAX, my understanding is that
you just take the min or max of the range, and use that for negotiation.

The initially-non-intuitive thing is that you can readily get a negotiated
value outside of the offered range. :-)

Consider an offer of "MaxConnections=3~10" to a device that wants
MaxConnections=2. Since MaxConnections is a MIN number, the correct
response (I believe) is "MaxConnections=2". I suspect however this might
seem counter-intuitive for new implementers.

Question 2:

Say you have a number that is not a MIN or MAX number (right now this'd be
a vendor-specific one), and you are offered a range (say "Foo=3~12"), and
had you made the offer you would have offered a different range (say
"Foo=10~16"). Do we want to say anything now about how to handle this
negotiation, or do we want to wait until we actually have a non-MIN/MAX
number in the spec?

I'd vote holding off, and just having everyone understand there will be
more work for some future version. :-)

Thoughts?

Take care,

Bill