[getdns-api] "name" as passed to getdns() et al

[Ray Bellis]

On 21 Jan 2013, at 17:06, Dick Hardt <dick.hardt at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> I think that is a HUGE feature!

For most names human readble == master file format.

The only exceptions (from memory) are those rare labels with characters >= 0x80, <= 0x20, or '.'

> A UTF-8 encoding of some kind?

And you think master file format would be hard?!

> That sounds complicated to me as an app developer.

It's actually very easy, if you know it's necessary.  I've only been caught out before by documentation that fails to specify this.

It's a failing in DNS (and made far worse by IDNA) that there's no completely unambiguous 1:1 mapping between "presentation format" (as typed in or displayed on screen) and "wire format".   There's no standardised presentation format for "a.b".c that people wouldn't just read as a.b.c

Master file format is a modest compromise, I think.

Ray