----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Abley" <jabley@hopcount.ca>
Actually, I think the problem is the confusion between a label string terminated in a dot (to indicate that no search domain should be appended) and a label string not so-terminated (which might mean that a search domain is attempted, depending on local configuration).
In fact, Joe, I think it's distinguishing your second case from "a label string which is intended to reference a rooted FQDN, but the user did not specify the trailing dot -- and yet still does not want a search path applied"... which is 99.9999% of the time outside of large corporate and college campuses, and only 99.9% of the time, otherwise. :-)
The terminology "root zone" or "root domain" to explain the trailing dot is misleading and unhelpful, I find.
No, what's *really* unhelpful and misleading is the people who say that it is the *dot* which specifies the name of the root, rather than the null labelstring which *follows* that dot (which is what it actually is, and I'll save everyone's stomach linings by not saying the words "alternate root" here. :-) Cheers, -- jr 'new intercalations on every message for authentication' a -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@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