New DB and line continuation?

Dear Berislav,

Berislav Todorovic wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, DB-News wrote:
> 
> >> The new version of the RIPE Database is now up and running!
> >> All objects have been automatically converted to RPSL and loaded into
> >> the new version of the Database.
> 
> Congratulations! However, I have a question:
> 
> When an attribute needs multiple lines to be described, the standard
> RPSL format requires the attribute name to be mentioned once, while
> successive lines are separted by spaces or commas (like you defined
> in the transition document as well). It used to be like that in the
> previous version of rpsl.ripe.net. However, right now, it seems to
> me there is a strange RIPE-181/RPSL mix in place. See example:
>

Indeed, we tried to introduce as little changes to objects look as possible,
while staying RPSL compliant. In fact, RPSL defines members attribute as:


Attribute    Value                    Type
      as-set       <object-name>            mandatory, single-valued,
                                            class key
      members      list of <as-numbers> or  optional, multi-valued
                   <as-set-names>

which means that one can have multiple 'members:' attribute, each of them may
have a list of members separated by commas.

So, formally there is no RPSL syntax violation. You can update your object to
make it look like in RADB, both examples are accepted and valid in the RIPE
database.

Regards,

Andrei
 
> * RADB and old REIMP.RIPE (standard RPSL):
> 
> [beri at nix00 ~]$ rwhois -h whois.ra.net as-kq
> as-set:        AS-KQ
> descr:         KPNQwest European routes
>                Formerly AS-EUNET AND NOT AS-EUNETQWEST
> members:       AS286, AS719, AS1136, AS1137, AS1213,
>                AS1234, AS1889, AS1891, AS1902, AS2043,
>                AS2049, AS2110, AS2135, AS2857, AS3220,
> ...
> 
> * RIPE (new format, RPSL):
> 
> as-set:       AS-KQ
> descr:        KPNQwest European routes
> descr:        Formerly AS-EUNET AND NOT AS-EUNETQWEST
> members:      AS286, AS719, AS1136, AS1137, AS1213, AS1234, AS1889
> members:      AS1891, AS1902, AS2043, AS2049, AS2110, AS2135, AS2857
> members:      AS3220, AS3246, AS3262, AS3265, AS3286, AS3324, AS3333
> members:      AS3347, AS3615, AS5385, AS5399, AS5403, AS5407, AS5419
> 
> While some of you might think this is not important, this is VERY
> important to some of us who make scripts for automating our tasks with
> the RIPE DB.
> 
> Can anyone explain the reason of this RPSL syntax violation? Thanks!
> 
> Regards,
> Beri
> 
> ---------    Berislav Todorovic, Network Engineer    ---------
> -------   KPNQwest N.V. - IP NOC (formerly EUnet NOC)  -------
> ----  Wilhelmina van Pruisenweg 78, 2595 AN Den Haag, NL  ----
> ---    Phone: +31-70-379-3990; Mobile: +31-651-333-641     ---
> --         Email: beri at kpnqwest.net <=> beri at EU.net         --
> ---      _   _  ____      _  .--.        ____  ____ __/_   ---
> -----    /__/  /___/ /\  /  /   / |   / /___/ /___   /  ------
> ------ _/  \_ /    _/  \/  (__.\  |/\/ /___  ____/  (__. -----

-- 
Andrei Robachevsky
DB Group Manager
RIPE NCC