----- Original Message ----- > From: "Cutler James R" <james.cut...@consultant.com>
> A domain name without a terminal dot is a relative domain name. > -- An application requesting name to address translation gets to > decide if a search list is to be used, including the default of dot. > > A domain name with a terminal dot is a Fully Qualified Domain Name. > -- An application requesting name to address translation must submit > the name as received to the lookup process. > > These definitions have been effective of decades and do not need > additional terminology. > -- Faulty implementations are not an excuse for ever more complex > terminology. The authoritative document here is, as Joe Abley noted earlier, RFC 1035, which says, in section 5.1: """ Domain names that end in a dot are called absolute, and are taken as complete. Domain names which do not end in a dot are called relative; the actual domain name is the concatenation of the relative part with an origin specified in a $ORIGIN, $INCLUDE, or as an argument to the master file loading routine. A relative name is an error when no origin is available. """ Or, in more Jewish terms: not so much. And in fact, I don't believe that you *have* a manual API-level choice as an application as to whether your resolver library will apply a search list or not: if you specify an absolute name, it won't; if you specify a relative name, it will. Nope: gethostbyname(3) only takes one argument: char *hostname So the only control you have as app is whether you include the trailing dot. (PS: your quoting (or bulleting) protocol is non-standard and non-intuitive) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
