Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Changes to CNEWS date parsing - what is now legal?
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.212937.15895@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1991 21:29:37 GMT
References: <21JUN91230123@carat.arizona.edu> <1991Jun22.213542.2256@twinsun.com> <1991Jun24.202026.16593@zoo.toronto.edu> <1991Jun28.154101.6873@Daisy.EE.UND.AC.ZA>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1991Jun28.154101.6873@Daisy.EE.UND.AC.ZA> barrett@Daisy.EE.UND.AC.ZA (Alan P Barrett) writes:
>It is not clear to me that 1036 forbids comments in Date lines.

Notice that the restricted subset of 822 syntax defined in section 2 of
1036 makes *no* provision for comments, except for 822-comment-like things
in From: and Sender: for which explicit provision is made.  Nor will any
(as far as I know) of the existing news packages tolerate 822 comments in
random places.  As an implementation accident due to the use of getdate(),
B News will put up with them in Date: lines, but nowhere else.

>"   The "Date" line (formerly "Posted") is the date that the message was
>"   originally posted to the network.  Its format must be acceptable
>"   both in RFC-822 and to the getdate(3) routine that is provided with
>"   the Usenet software.
>
>Clear as mud.  What does ``must be acceptable to the getdate(3)
>routine'' really mean?

It means "mumble". :-)  If you believe that 1036 is supposed to be a
restricted subset of 822, then only an 822 date is acceptable.  Alas,
1036 repeatedly contradicts itself on its relationship to 822.

>It really is high time 1036 was rewritten.

Amen.  Eliot is talking about that being the next job after the current
revisions to the NNTP RFC, and that sounds reasonable to me.  We don't
actually have to do much to 1036's information content -- it's not very
broken and doesn't need much fixing, mostly just a critical inspection
in regard to the current 822 revision work -- but the actual presentation
needs heavy revision.
-- 
Lightweight protocols?  TCP/IP *is*     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
lightweight already; just look at OSI.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
