On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 17:18 +0200, Petri Helenius wrote:
So you are saying that it's ok for a Cisco or Juniper router to return zero for a counter when they feel "busy" ?
Is it OK? No. Does it happen? Sure. The problem *could* be as simple as this: What do you return for an integer value when the requested data is either unavailable, corrupted, or a fault occurred in the collection process? Null? Maybe, except that NULL and zero can be perceived as the same by some programmatic functions and integer operators. Assuming that somewhere during the polling failure an error is generated.... Does it make sense to always check errno every poll? Constantly checking for errors is perceived as "overhead" by a LOT of programmers. Don't assume that I adhere to this line of thinking, I'm just explaining to you how others may, and probably do, think.
My RFC collection tells a different story.
My experiences show that no complete segment of business, education, or government ever implements systems and networks according to holistic RFC thinking. YMMV. -Jim P.