[net-dns-users] Fwd: Bug report: Net::DNS::Zonefile fails to read escaped parenthesis

[Brian Conry]

On 06/18/2013 08:34 AM, Bob Harold wrote:
> Section 2.3.1 restricts domain names to letters, digits, and hyphen, but
> the wording is pretty wishy-washy "Preferred Name Syntax".
> Section 5.1 allows files to use \X and \DDD but it is not clear if that
> includes domain names, or is for other fields, like text records, soa
> email fields (the example given), SPF records, etc.
> The caveat is still that non-standard domain names won't work with all
> applications, and are best avoided.  Use at your own risk.

In my experience, anything that processes real-world packets and DNS
data will see lots of non-standard characters.  I haven't kept track,
but I feel comfortable saying that I've seen all 256 characters at one
time or another.

In my book it's pretty much a requirement for tools to deal gracefully
(i.e. either succeed or return a well-defined error) with any garbage
sent their way.

It's also nice when tools can, if asked nicely, produce "illegal" data
so I can use them to produce test data for other systems.  :)

Just my personal $0.02
Brian