Hi, IMHO preferable solution is to modify "changed:" attribute format: changed: <e-mail address> with automatically generated timestamp. Such modification also allows exclude errors like "changed:" attribute order, updates with untouched "changed:" etc. Best regards, Rimas Janusauskas, Vilnius University Hostmaster On Wed, 11 May 2005, Shane Kerr wrote:
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 10:13:31 +0200 From: Shane Kerr <shane@ripe.net> To: Erics <EricS@t-com.net> Cc: db-wg@ripe.net Subject: Re: [db-wg] Whois changes
Erics wrote:
Hi,
i think this is a good idea. The default output should show the last changed date. This could be very helpful for LIRs.
It is easy for users who need this information to get it -- add the "-B" flag to your query. Also, most users of the database are not LIRs.
Relying on the "changed:" attribute to know when objects were updated has the problem that there is no error checking on it. A user can put almost any "changed:" value that they want. I could update my person object today to have this value:
changed: ripe-dbm@ripe.net 19901215
I think in the past people have suggested a "reliable" timestamp on objects in the database, but other people have argued against it.
One suggestion was to add an optional attribute with a reliable timestamp that would get generated by the database. This way, if it is there you can trust it, but if it is not then you must rely on "changed:" attributes or do without any information.
-- Shane