ietf-nntp Wildmats

[Clive D.W. Feather]

I'm trying to pull together all I can remember of the Wildmat issue so that
we can discuss it in one thread.

There were a whole load of issues with wildmats, and I've attempted to
list them here.

(1) Do we want the present informal style of description or do we want
something more formal ? I did an attempt of the latter which is at:
<http://www.davros.org/nntp-texts/section-5.txt>. Please look at the
general format and don't worry about the details for now.

If we do want something more formal, I'm willing to do it based on the
results of this thread.

(2) Do we want more examples ? My version has a lot more, and in particular
attempts to show some of the harder bits (like the effect of \ within []).

(3) If something is described as "a wildmat", does "xxx,yyy" match the
single string "xxx,yyy" or does it match either of the strings "xxx" or
"yyy" ? My understanding is the latter, but we need to revisit the
terminology in each case that it occurs.

The following commands have wildmat parameters:
    LIST ACTIVE
    LIST ACTIVE.TIMES
    LIST NEWSGROUPS
    PAT                (possibly can take multiple wildmats)
    NEWNEWS
and the command LIST DISTRIB.PATS returns a wildmat.

For each of these we need to decide:
(A) Is there only one argument or are several allowed ?
(B) What does a comma within the argument mean ?

If we can consistently say that a comma separates patterns, and that
patterns are matched on a "rightmost wins" basis, then we can simplify the
terminology and the text. If we don't mean that, we need to decide what we
*do* mean.

Note that the current documentation doesn't describe commas and doesn't
explain what negating a pattern is used for.

(4) Should backslash be allowed to remove the special status of characters
other than the four listed ([ * ? and \), or only those four ? If so, which
characters ? If not, how do I escape a comma ?

(5) Do we want \u sequences to allow characters outside the ASCII set to be
described using only ASCII characters ?

(6) Do we want a way to escape space ?

(7) Is PAT supposed to have multiple arguments and, if so, how are they
handled ?

(8) There's a whole range of issues, which Russ describes, to do with white
space and header (un)folding in PAT.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:  +44 20 8371 1138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:  +44 20 8371 1037
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