Comments on SPKI draft of 25 March 1997

[rivest@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Ron Rivest)]

Here are some small comments on syntax:

* In section 4.2.1.3 (hex string), it should be stated that the number of
  hex digits must be EVEN.  You don't want to start processing a gigabyte
  hex string
	&a75b4ffb80112c...
  without knowing where the byte boundaries are!

* Similarly in section 4.2.1.6, it might be useful to state that 
  each representation must represent an integral number of bytes.
  (Thus, &f- &f is illegal, as is =Ef- =5G .)

* In section 4.1.18 (date), I assume that by "lower significance time
  fields" you mean the HH:MM:SS fields and not the DD, even though that
  is nominally a "time field".  Maybe use the phrase "time of day fields".
  Also, is it necessary to make it explicit that an time-of-day of 00:00:00
  means the midnight at the end of the previous day and the beginning of
  this one?

* In section 4.3.3 (blanks), instead of saying "there are no blanks"
  (which is incorrect, since byte strings may contain blanks), say
  "there are no blanks separating elements of a list, or their
   enclosing parentheses, from each other".

* In the BNF, shouldn't you have the * (for indefinite repetition) immediately
  follow the preceding element, with no intervening spaces, as you do for
  the "?" ?  I think this reads better.

Ron Rivest

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