[net-dns-users] Bug with large txt RR ?

[Felipe Gasper]

> On Oct 7, 2026, at 12:17 PM, Håkon Alstadheim via net-dns-users <net-dns-users at lists.nlnetlabs.nl> wrote:
> 
> 
> Den 07.10.2026 18:07, skrev Håkon Alstadheim:
>> 
>> Den 07.10.2026 01:38, skrev Doug Barton via net-dns-users:
>>> But that's not what you said. Now you're taking dig's output, then post-processing by hand. If that's your standard, then apply it to the Net::DNS output as well.
>>> 
>> Sorry I'm having such a hard time getting this across, my presentation was probably confusing because I've tried many of the various ways to get at the txt contents.
>> 
> Looks like I mixed my examples again. First example, with quotes on *some* for the chunks and others naked, is from using rdstring, txtdata gives just extra spaces.

Every TXT record is a *list* of strings, each capped at 255 bytes.

Any application that models TXT record as a single string must define logic for splitting & joining across the TXT record’s individual pieces.

DKIM, for example, (IIRC) simply joins the segments end-to-end.

Scalar-context Net::DNS::RR::TXT::txtdata(), on the other hand, joins the segments with a space.

Both are correct & reasonable.

It might be less confusing if txtdata(), in scalar context, either returned an arrayref or just croaked. That way the library would “have no opinion” on the joining of TXT strings. That would break all manner of things, though.

cheers,
-Felipe Gasper