[PROPOSAL] standard multivalue parameter mechanism

Recordon, David drecordon at verisign.com
Sun Oct 1 07:18:22 UTC 2006


The only concern I see with this is that an association handle may contain commas.
> Associations are referred to by a handle, which MUST be a string
> 255 characters or less, and consist only of ASCII characters in
> the range 33-126 inclusive (printable non-whitespace characters).

Is there a reason to have the authentication spec itself define this?  Could it define it only for the required field(s) and then where it discusses that multiple keys with the same name are not allowed, it also recommend that extensions use a comma as a delimiter when needed?

--David

-----Original Message-----
From: specs-bounces at openid.net on behalf of Dick Hardt
Sent: Sat 9/30/2006 4:45 PM
To: specs at openid.net
Subject: [PROPOSAL] standard multivalue parameter mechanism
 
Motivating Use Case
----------------------------
Passing multiple values for the same parameter, or lists is useful  
for the protocol. Having a standard way of doing it will make it  
easier for implementors and less prone to error. openid.signed takes  
a list, and openid.ax.required and openid.ax.if_available apply to  
zero or more items.

Given that multiple parameters is not desired due to 1) the  
enumerated list for what was signed cannot have multiple values, and  
2) a number of web application platforms are allergic to multiple  
parameters of the same name, putting multiple values in the same  
parameter separated by a delimiter is the other obvious option.

Proposed Implementation
-----------------------------------
Given that the comma "," is already being used as a delimiter for  
openid.signed, that a comma be considered the delimiter for any  
OpenID parameter.

The comma would then be an escape character in all OpenID strings,  
and that if a comma is in a string, that it is escaped out with  
another comma as such ",," ie. the string "Apt. 123, 55 Sesame St."  
would be "Apt. 123, 55 Sesame St."

... suggestions for other delimiting mechanisms welcome!

-- Dick
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at openid.net
http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/specs


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-specs/attachments/20061001/57ab0424/attachment-0002.htm>


More information about the specs mailing list