ietf-nntp OVER and PAT
Clive D.W. Feather
clive at demon.net
Tue Nov 21 02:51:06 PST 2000
Russ Allbery said:
> I am absolutely opposed to ever making \u match more than one character
> under any circumstances whatsoever. I think that's a huge departure from
> what \u means in C and what \-escapes mean everywhere else, and I think
> that would be horribly confusing.
Agreed. [If the OVER database has already converted things to a single
space, that isn't a problem, of course.]
> I don't understand why you think there's such a strong need to match
> arbitrary whitespace. Why is this such an important property? Why can't
> the client use a number of \u sequences equal to the number of spaces that
> are present, provided that headers are unfolded using something like the
> DRUMS rules before the match takes place?
I think the concern was that the result isn't either predictable or
convenient for a client. For example, the following headers:
Subject: Re: This is a test header
Subject: Re: This is a
test header
should be equivalent, and I want to write a single wildmat that matches
either. Personally I'd also like to be able to match:
Subject: Re: This is a test header
as well.
> Note
> that we certainly don't have any mechanism for matching arbitrary
> whitespace in a header right now, and I've not seen any huge cry for one.
Should we be prevented from looking ahead ?
--
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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