ietf-nntp Wildmats

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Tim Roberts said:
> I have no issues with the different options (brackets, slashes, etc) however
> I find the matching 'rightmost wins' very confusing .  Is there any reason
> why it can't simply be stated that a string needs to match ALL components to
> be considered a match (which is staight forward, easy to explain and easy to
> understand)?

Except that that is neither what currently happens nor what you obviously
suggest:

> Example
> "a*,!*b,c*" and "a*,c*,!*b" would both mean "any string beginning with
> either a or c and does not end with b" versus the very confusing "righmost"
> example given...

The string aaaa does not match c*, so your "matches all" rule fails.
The string cccc does not match a*, so your "matches all" rule fails.

"a*,!*b,c*" means "begins a and doesn't end b, or begins c"
"a*,c*,!*b" means "begins a or c, but doesn't end b"

In particular, consider "alt.*,!alt.binaries.*,alt.binaries.special.*".
With "rightmost wins" this means "alt.binaries.special.*, plus all of alt
except alt.binaries". What do you think it means ?

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