Re: wg review of draft-ietf-ipcdn-docsisevent-mib-03.txt

Hi -

> From: "Nakanishi Greg-MGI8179" <[email protected]>
> To: "'Raftus, David'" <[email protected]>; "Ipcdn List (E-mail)" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 11:37 AM
> Subject: RE: [ipcdn] wg review of draft-ietf-ipcdn-docsisevent-mib-03.txt
...
> > 1) Not sure if the default value of NULL is appropriate for
> > the BITs defval for object docsDevCmTrapControl. This doesn't
> > give any real guidance as to whether the traps should be
> > enabled or disabled. The original value of 0x00, while
> > perhaps not strictly conforming to the octet string nature of
> > BITs, did signal that all traps default to off.
> >
>
> I think some input from a MIB expert would be useful here.  However,
> from the example given in RFC2578, I think a NULL value indicates
> that all the bits are set to zero.  The following snippet is from section
> 7.9 of RFC 2578.
>
> BITS               DEFVAL { { primary, secondary } }
>                    -- enumerated values that are set
> BITS               DEFVAL { { } }
>                    -- no enumerated values are set
...

Having a DEFVAL in which no bits are set is prefectly reasonable,
and specifying "DEFVAL {{}}" is the correct way to do it, but
*please* don't call it "NULL".  That is a distinct ASN.1 type,
and I'd strongly recommend not using that term for this purpose.

Randy