Jay, On 2013-02-22, at 14:20, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
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"...
That's the same as my second case. "rooted FQDN" is also not well-defined outside this thread. I don't think just adopting the terminology unilaterally is going to make it so.
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,
The dot doesn't specify the name of the root. That's why it's confusing.
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. :-)
There is no null label string following the dot in a fully-qualified domain name, in this context. You're confusing the presentation of domain names with wire-format encoding of domain names. Joe