wildmats (was: Re: ietf-nntp Draft summary of IETF 48 meeting)

[Russ Allbery]

Stan O Barber <sob at verio.net> writes:

> I think you are overstating here. It can't break all attempts if the
> parser is smart enough. It may break such attempts in current
> implementations. Perhaps that is really all you are trying to say here.

INN's parser for XPAT already does try to handle embedded spaces, although
it doesn't do it all that well.

> So, is there agreement that wildmats can't have embedded spaces in them? 

I don't agree there; I think that at least some of the matching commands
like PAT really do need them.

> This is a very confusing paragraph. You are saying that commas are not
> supported except where they are supported. Are you really trying to say
> that the use of commas should not be generalized? If so, that means we
> will have to remove them from those commands where such generalization
> might be useful. I don't have a problem with this, but it's important
> that everyone understand the fall out of such a decision.

I'm in favor of generalizing comma support; it's supported in enough
different places and not in others that trying to maintain that situation
doesn't strike me as a good idea.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>