ietf-nntp PAT - it's ugly, lets leave it out of base NNTP

[Charles Lindsey]

In <877l5ytm8t.fsf at erlenstar.demon.co.uk> Andrew Gierth <andrew at erlenstar.demon.co.uk> writes:

>XHDR is very much more widely used than XPAT, but note that PAT
>replaces both of them.

I have just has a look at XHDR, and the way it is implemented in the
reference implementation. The Common Extansions document (which is only
"informational") does not say that the line for each header found should
start with the article number, but the implementation does it
nevertheless. Also, the implementation puts the full message-id at the
start of the line when a message-id parameter is given, rather than using
the fictitious article number '0'.

But here is a wicked thought:

Rather than introducing a PAT into our document, as an imcompatible
replacement for XPAT, would we be better introducing a HDR into our
document as a slightly less incompatible replacement for XHDR?

It could have a 'pattern' parameter (described as an 'extension' to XHDR),
and we could give the pattern parameter any syntax we chose, including
REs.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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