Subj : sbbsecho and bad packets
To   : deon
From : Digital Man
Date : Mon Oct 06 2025 23:30:13

  Re: sbbsecho and bad packets
  By: deon to Digital Man on Tue Oct 07 2025 01:36 pm

 >   Re: sbbsecho and bad packets
 >   By: Digital Man to deon on Mon Oct 06 2025 05:53 pm
 >
 >  >  > I didnt think DateTime was a null terminated string? Its 20 Bytes in
 >  >  > the
 > Howdy,
 >
 >  >  > packed message header (FTS-0001.16 C.1).
 >
 >  >  > "A packed  message has a number of fixed  length
 >  >  >       fields followed by four null terminated strings."
 >
 >  >  > (those being: to/from/subject and text are null terminated).
 >
 >  >  > Or have a missed something?
 >
 >  > DateTime is defined as follows in FTS-1:
 >
 >  > DateTime   = (* a character string 20 characters long *)
 >  >                                      (* 01 Jan 86  02:34:56 *)
 >  >                    DayOfMonth " " Month " " Year " "
 >  >                    " " HH ":" MM ":" SS
 >  >                    Null
 >
 >  > The "Null" is explicit there. These FidoNet specs are pretty terrible,
 >  > but FTS-1 is one of the better ones. :-)
 >
 > I think we quoted the same document. Except you quoted the "a Stored
 > Message" ("as it is the layer that the user's application sees as opposed to
 > what FidoNet sees".) section, and I quoted the "Packed Message" ("As this is
 > a data structure which is actually transferred, its definition is critical
 > to FidoNet") section.

Indeed, yes, but the DateTime field definition for the packed message is "inherited" from the Stored Message definition - it's not redefined.

 > Anyway, does that mean SBBSecho will only accept packets if the datatime
 > field is encoded as a null terminated string?

Correct. It's been that way for a very long time, not new behavior.
-- 
                                            digital man (rob)

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