ietf-nntp OVER and PAT

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Charles Lindsey said:
>> (2) PAT takes multiple wildmat arguments, just like everyone elses,
>> and each one is tested separately; all must pass.
> 
> Both are incompatible with XPAT, (2) the more so (but I think you meant
> "one must pass").

No, I meant "all must pass". If you want "one must pass" you just put
commas between the wildmats.

In other words, "a,b,c,d" means one of "a", "b", "c", or "d", while
"a,b c,d" means one of "a" or "b" *and* one of "c" or "d" [a to d here
are wildmat patterns, not characters.]

> How many current XPATs inplement (2)?

I don't know, but it's what your recent example seemed to say.

>> [In both cases we use \, to escape commas, and \u0020 or something to
>> escape space.]
> 
> \u or whatever needs to match arbitrary whitespace (unless we continue
> with the present OVER canonicalisation, which Andrew doesn't like) on
> account of the fact that there is no other way to say "match arbitrary
> whitespace here" in wildmats (they are not full REs).

If we need a way to say "arbitrary whitespace", then that would be a reason
to have \s as opposed to \u0040. I've lost track of the OVER
canonicalisation issue.

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