Identification of Express Version

[Phil Spiby]

Dave,

Sorry if you think I am being a little dim here, but I don't see a problem!

Of course the ASN.1 number will change if a TC is published, but so far we
have only published TC's when there has been a clear technical need to go
through the process. Although some people believe the two TC's issued
against edition one only fixed up minor editorial issues, they both had
varying effects on conforming parsers (TC2 much more so than TC1 admitted).
We have found a major issue with the lack of TC identification has been that
EXPRESS which is valid according to TC2 is rejected in some parsers not
conforming to TC2. A clear indication in the EXPRESS that the file is
expected to conform to this version (including TC's) is needed and has been
established with the DAM.

On the version 4/5 issue: my understanding is that the versions are defined
by what is published through ISO. We are balloting on the DAM, but the
document to be published by ISO will be Edition 2, which brings together
Edition 1, the two TC's and the agreed technical consensus from the DAM. The
DAM itself will not be published by ISO, therefore the version number will
be 4.

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-wg11 at steptools.com [mailto:owner-wg11 at steptools.com]On
> Behalf Of Dave Loffredo
> Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 7:03 PM
> To: edbark at nist.gov
> Cc: wg11 at steptools.com
> Subject: Re: Identification of Express Version
>
>
>
> Ed,
>
> If I can summarize your two points as follows:
>
>    #1 -- the ASN.1 identifier will stay the same from draft
>       status to IS
>
> Perhaps, but that is not the key issue.  A TC will change the ASN.1
> identifier, even if there are no technical changes to the spec.  So
> the issue may not hit now, but it eventually will.
>
>
>    #2 -- the ASN.1 identifier is needed to separate E1 from E2
>       schemas.
>
> I completely agree that something is needed to separate the two, but
> is the ASN.1 identifer too fragile for this purpose?  THIS is the real
> question.  As shown above, the ASN.1 identifier may change because of
> editorial fixes that have nothing to do with new language features.
>
> 					       - Dave
>
>