[getdns-api] Remove IDNA functions from getdns?

[Willem Toorop]

Op 03-09-15 om 16:32 schreef Andrew Sullivan:
> On Thu, Sep 03, 2015 at 03:21:43PM +0200, Willem Toorop wrote:
>>
>> Currently the API defines two functions for IDNA 2008:
>> getdns_convert_ulabel_to_alabel() and getdns_convert_alabel_to_ulabel()
>>
>> In our implementation, those are (more or less) direct mappings to the
>> underlying idna_to_ascii_8z() and idna_to_unicode_8z8z() functions from
>> the GNU IDN library.  Applications that need to do IDNA conversions,
>> might just as well use those functions from libidn directly instead of
>> using the getdns facades.  Because of those two functions our library
>> has a dependency on libidn, but does not add any extra value on top of
>> that library.
> 
> The purpose of getdns, though, was to give applications a one-stop
> shop to do all these DNSy things, and IDNA is part of that.  After
> all, in some sense every other thing in getdns can be achieved by
> lower-level functions as well.

I don't know, getdns has some pretty unique features :)  But even if all
could be offered by other lower-level libraries, those other
functionalities are all closely integrated in a coherent body.  Not with
IDNA support, which is just offered through those two - completely loose
from everything else - functions.

Perhaps it would be better to offer IDNA in a more getdns way?  For
example through an extension, which will process query names ulabel to
alabel and return processed dname's converted from alabels to ulabels in
the response dict?

Best regards,
-- Willem