Comments on: RFC 1982 limits itself to powers of two unnecessarily http://www.lshift.net/blog/2007/02/17/rfc-1982-limits-itself-to-powers-of-two-unnecessarily What happens at LShift Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:24:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.12-alpha by: Matthew Mundell http://www.lshift.net/blog/2007/02/17/rfc-1982-limits-itself-to-powers-of-two-unnecessarily#comment-37069 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:50:18 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2007/02/17/rfc-1982-limits-itself-to-powers-of-two-unnecessarily#comment-37069 <p>RFC 1982 seems to be making explicit the arithmetic of the serial numbers that are used to version DNS zone information, in particular how to determine the order of two of these serial numbers. This "Serial Number Arithmetic" is referred to in the DNS RFCS 1034 and 1035.</p> <p>Was the power of two limit perhaps chosen because a serial with an arbitrary maximum would generally be represented in the same number of bits that would be used if the next higher power of two was the maximum? For example if the N mentioned above was 10 then 4 bits would be needed to represent the largest serial number anyway, the same as if N was 16 (i.e. if SERIAL_BITS was 4).</p> RFC 1982 seems to be making explicit the arithmetic of the serial numbers that are used to version DNS zone information, in particular how to determine the order of two of these serial numbers. This “Serial Number Arithmetic” is referred to in the DNS RFCS 1034 and 1035.

Was the power of two limit perhaps chosen because a serial with an arbitrary maximum would generally be represented in the same number of bits that would be used if the next higher power of two was the maximum? For example if the N mentioned above was 10 then 4 bits would be needed to represent the largest serial number anyway, the same as if N was 16 (i.e. if SERIAL_BITS was 4).

]]> by: Paul Crowley http://www.lshift.net/blog/2007/02/17/rfc-1982-limits-itself-to-powers-of-two-unnecessarily#comment-36640 Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:03:10 +0000 http://www.lshift.net/blog/2007/02/17/rfc-1982-limits-itself-to-powers-of-two-unnecessarily#comment-36640 <p>I'm not sure I understand what RFC1982 is trying to achieve - could you clarify?</p> I’m not sure I understand what RFC1982 is trying to achieve - could you clarify?

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