Dear Wilfried, you wrote:
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 15:32:25 MET-DST From: "Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet" <woeber@cc.univie.ac.at> To: noc@noc.dfn.de Cc: db-wg@ripe.net, woeber@cc.univie.ac.at Message-Id: <009A9011.8BF70FFE.10@cc.univie.ac.at> Subject: Re: interesting person entry... [...] I think all the lines where syntax checking is being done should *not* allow empty lines. I agree.
To some degree I can see the usefulness of *single* empty lines within a *block* of attributes that allow free format text. Currently remark:, trouble:, and address: comes to my mind - and maybe a few more.
But even then, the optical effect that is described can easily be obtained by e.g. putting a "." or "-" as the only character into the value field. True.
I suppose that would remove some complexity from the software to support this "cosmetic sugar". Thus it would be my personal proposal to disallow empty lines altogether (empty in the sense of an attribute having no value supplied).
I asume, that most of the empty attribute lines (as they are found in the person objects) came from some form interface where an empty line is often inserted in the address before the city or state... I agree that disallowing empty lines will make the database software much simpler in certain aspects and therefore I support your request to remove this option from the software. Regards Joachim _____________________________________________________________________________ DFN Network Operation Center, Dr. Joachim Schmitz, (finger help@noc.dfn.de) >>>>>> mailto: noc@noc.dfn.de <<<<<< Rechenzentrum Universitaet Stuttgart, Allmandring 30, D-70550 Stuttgart Phone: 0711-685-5810, 0711-685-5576, FAX +711 6788363 (business hours) EMERGENCY phone +711 1319 139 with answering machine and pager _____________________________________________________________________________