ietf-nntp Simplification of wildmat

[Charles Lindsey]

In <87g0evoe1v.fsf at erlenstar.demon.co.uk> Andrew Gierth <andrew at erlenstar.demon.co.uk> writes:

>Writing standards does not change the world.

Not in the short term. But the world catches up eventually.

>I reiterate: if we want to _change_ (and it _is_ a change from
>existing usage) the definition of commands like LIST ACTIVE so that
>they take a list of (possibly-negated) wildmat patterns, then we
>should make that change part of the description of those commands (and
>include a compatibility note) rather than shoehorn stuff into the
>wildmat definition itself.

The effect is the same whether you specifiy ',' as a feature of wildmats
in general, or of all those commands which happen to use wildmats. I
thought we were generally agreed to do it once and for all in wildmats.


> Charles> though I could be persuaded to leave out '[...]',
> Charles> and I think there is no remaining need for '\' at all.

>it is perhaps worth noting that at least one reasonably common
>implementation (Diablo) supports neither [...] nor \ in wildmats.

That is persuasive, but not overriding.

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