Problem opening a web page in firefox that has a hyphen "-" character.

[Alexander Skwar]

· Scott Kitterman <ubuntu at kitterman.com>:

> I took a quick look at RFC 1035, which I believe is the authoritative 
> reference and I believe that's a valid domain name

I don't think it's valid.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1035.html

| 2.3.1. Preferred name syntax
| 
| The DNS specifications attempt to be as general as possible in the rules
| for constructing domain names.  The idea is that the name of any
| existing object can be expressed as a domain name with minimal changes.
| 
| However, when assigning a domain name for an object, the prudent user
| will select a name which satisfies both the rules of the domain system
| and any existing rules for the object, whether these rules are published
| or implied by existing programs.
| 
| For example, when naming a mail domain, the user should satisfy both the
| rules of this memo and those in RFC-822.  When creating a new host name,
| the old rules for HOSTS.TXT should be followed.  This avoids problems
| when old software is converted to use domain names.
| 
| The following syntax will result in fewer problems with many
| 
| applications that use domain names (e.g., mail, TELNET).
| 
| <domain> ::= <subdomain> | " "
| 
| <subdomain> ::= <label> | <subdomain> "." <label>
| 
| <label> ::= <letter> [ [ <ldh-str> ] <let-dig> ]
| 
| <ldh-str> ::= <let-dig-hyp> | <let-dig-hyp> <ldh-str>
| 
| <let-dig-hyp> ::= <let-dig> | "-"
| 
| <let-dig> ::= <letter> | <digit>
| 
| <letter> ::= any one of the 52 alphabetic characters A through Z in
| upper case and a through z in lower case
| 
| <digit> ::= any one of the ten digits 0 through 9

As you can see, a subdomain is a "label" and a 
"label" *ALWAYS* starts with a letter. Thus, the name is not correct.
It cannot start with a "-" and it cannot end with a "-".




Alexander Skwar
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