Re: Defvalues of Enums

["David T. Perkins" <dperkins@dsperkins.com>]

HI,

My suggestion below was ambiguous. So, here is the corrected text.
And also, I apologize for "channeling randy" without his permission.

At 01:07 PM 4/14/2004 -0700, David T. Perkins wrote:
>HI,
>
>Ok, let's open the SMI and address the issue. (I'm being sarcastic,
>if you cannot tell.) Randy will go back to ASN.1 and say that the
>way enums are done in the SMI is really just associating labels
>with integer values and that ASN.1 allows use of numeric values
>or labels. (However, see the note in section 14.10 of X.208/ISO 8824)
>And I'll point out that this is true, but the SMI's
>enumerated integers is patterned after the ASN.1 enumerated type, and
>for the enumerated type values can only be expressed as "labels".
>(see section 15.4 of X.208/ISO 8824)
>We have gone through this discussion gazillion of times.
>At this time, I don't believe that it is worth spending too
>much time on the issue, and suggest that the lintSMI maintainers
>modify their program to require that defvals for enumerated
>values can specify only a name of value (that is the "label"
>specified in the definition). (And the review guidelines
>be updated.)
>Note that if you want to follow Randy's argument, then one
>should allow SYNTAX clauses like the following, since they
>are valid ASN.1:
>  SYNTAX Integer32 { negone(-1), zero(0), ninety(90) } (-100..100)
>
>At 10:52 AM 4/14/2004 -0700, Randy Presuhn wrote:
>>Hi -
>>
>>> From: "Harrington, David" <dbh@enterasys.com>
>>> To: "Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <bwijnen@lucent.com>
>>> Cc: "Mreview (E-mail)" <mreview@ops.ietf.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 9:55 AM
>>> Subject: RE: LLDP MIBs
>>...
>>
>>> It appears to me that the issue is whether an enumerated value MUST be
>>> specified in a DEFVAL by its name rather than its value. I don't see why
>>> it should make a difference as long as the value is one of the defined
>>> enumerations.
>>>
>>> Is this really an error?
>>...
>>
>>I don't think so.
>>
>>Although the examples of DEFVALs in RFC 2578 use names rather than
>>values, I don't see anything there or in the MIB review guidelines
>>that would make it a requirement.
>>
>>I think one could even argue that page 27 of the MIB
>>review guidelines provides some motivation for preferring numbers
>>to names, even though the names are less human-hostile.
>>
>>However, common practice seems to be to use the names.
>>
>>Randy
>
>Regards,
>/david t. perkins