Hi David & DB folks !
What happened:
The software first searches for 'U. Schaefer' and cannot find anything. Then it breaks up the 'U. Schaefer' in the following fields:
U (trailing dots are discarded) Schaefer
the U key is discarded because it is too small (for a good reason)
As much as I remember, this is in line with a recommendation from the DB-WG.
... Short discussion:
- U. Schaefer
Names likes this will be rejected in the next release of the updating code. Names should consist of at least two parts, not counting abbreviated parts/titles.
Good stuff. But I think we should try to weed out offending things before (or in parallel) with the introduction of this more stringent checks. I think we add just another level of complexity and user confusion if we don't...
- The inetnum object is incorrect: It references a non-existing person object. This will not happen in normal circumstances. The new (not yet deployed) updating code will disallow (most) non-existing references.
Hmmm.... What about allowing an update but issuing a warning? And the other way 'round - issue a warning if an object which is still referenced gets removed. I'm not sure whether it makes sense to *sometimes* enforce link sanity and to allow for breaking them later (e.g. with a delete for the referenced object). Maybe that's just some aspects for a (hypothetical) package of sanity checks that might be activated regularly or upon request.
- the software should have found 'U. Schaefer' if the object existed (and nothing more, see algoritm above)
- I can change the indexing in such a way that that trailing dots are indexed. However, this might be worse then the problem: accidental dots after names cause the generation of different keys from the objects where the dots are left out and thus objects that are obvious the same are not seen as such anymore (by the software).
I don;t think that we should make software chages to accomodate syntax errors. In a lot of different documents, the syntax for a person object is cleraly defined: name [initials] name - the initials to be registered without a trailing dot. At the same time titles and gender specific local language "syntactic sugar" is not allowed. Not sure whether there's a chance to guard against the proliferation of "Herr", "Frau", "Professor" etc... ~~~~~~ WRT "fuzzy" / wildcard matches - it would make the RIPE-DB software more user friendly (and maybe more attractive for deployment by other registries) to provide for (implicit/explicit) regexp or partial key matches. But I think that would be a major (conceptual) change and should be discussed, both technically and the human resources involved. Even if it might be easy to implement :-) Wilfried. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at Computer Center - ACOnet : Vienna University : Tel: +43 1 4065822 355 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4065822 170 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : NIC: WW144 --------------------------------------------------------------------------