[dns-operations] IDN output and dig

[Dave Knight]

On 2012-07-09, at 12:14 PM, Jim Reid wrote:

> On 9 Jul 2012, at 16:39, Edward Lewis wrote:
> 
>> Should DiG's output be unchanged or is this "good?"  Should the OS vendors be asked to stop this?
> 
> IMO, dig should only display what's actually in the DNS packets.

By default, yes.

> Some other tool(s) can be used to render IDNs into whatever non-ASCII scripts/fonts may (or may not) be appropriate.

I like that dig can do this itself, so long as it doesn't do it unless I explicitly tell it to.

> The *last* thing dig needs are even more command line or environment variables.

I don't see any problem at all with more command line options, I like getting more stuff, and as these are options I don't have to know about them if I don't want to.

> The output you showed Ed illustrates the problem when poorly thought-out "features" are added and then break things when there was no need whatsoever for that behaviour.

Having the option is great, making it the default isn't.

I think dig is doing the right thing here, whoever packages dig for whatever distro Ed is using is not.

> I doubt the Linux kiddies will care. The message in Rob Pike's "cat -v harmful" USENIX talk from the late 1990s is just lost on them.


dave