ietf-nntp Re: DRAFT Basic-Format v0.2

[Buddha Buck]

Please note that I have -not- read the NNTP-draft; I am just following 
the USEFOR list.

Stan Barber wrote:
> > As regards complete news articles coming from the server, all I can see in
> > your draft is in section 4 where it speaks of multi-line responses. The
> > first response line, terminated by CRLF, is presumably a response code.
> > After that, there may be any number of lines terminated by CRLF, but there
> > is no mention of any maximum line length, so presumably one line of a
> > million bytes is in order. There must be a "last line" terminated by CRLF,
> > followed by a line with a single "." on it (dot stuffing required as
> > usual). There is no prohibition of NULs or of isolated CRs and LFs. So it
> > would seems that an article in pure binary would be in order provided it
> > has a CRLF at the end. Is that correct?
> 
> Yes.

So how is the recipient to know?

Say the sender wants to send the string:

  "<arbitrary binary>"

Based on the above quote, my understanding that it should send:

  "<arbitrary binary><CRLF>.<CRLF>"

And that any occurance of "<CRLF>." in the <arbitrary binary> should be 
replaced by "<CRLF>..".  The recipient should replace any occurance of 
"<CRLF>.." with "<CRLF>."

That said, if I send a text message "One Line Message Body.<CRLF>", 
should
the sender send "One Line Message Body.<CRLF>.<CRLF>", or "One Line 
Message Body.<CRLF><CRLF>.<CRLF>"?  In otherwords, should the first 
<CRLF> of <CRLF>.<CRLF> be considered part of message, or should the 
<CRLF>.<CRLF> be appended to the end of the message?

I could be wrong, but it seems that current NNTP implementations would 
expect "Text<CRLF>.<CRLF>", and not "Text<CRLF><CRLF>.<CRLF>".  If 
future implementations are expected to support arbitrary binary, then 
they should expect the latter.  A mixmatch between old and new 
implementations would result in postings with extra blank lines, or a 
missing final newline.  This might cause problems with authentication 
routines.

Am I reading this wrong?


-- 
     Buddha Buck                      bmbuck at acsu.buffalo.edu
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacaphony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects."  -- A.L.A. v. U.S. Dept. of Justice