ietf-nntp Wildmats

[Charles Lindsey]

In <8Ey8RZEHw-B at khms.westfalen.de> kaih at khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) writes:

>>     wildmat = wildmat-pattern *("," ["!"] wildmat-pattern)

>Is there a particular reason why the first pattern does not allow a "!"?  
>This seems inconsistent (and, at first glance, unnecessary).

We certainly discussed this. Essentially, "U,!V" means "start with the
universe U, and then eliminate from it everything in V". If the wildmat
starts with a '!', then there is no initial universe.

But why not take '*' as the initial universe, you ask? Good question! All
I remember is that we disallowed that for some reason. Perhaps Clive will
remember.

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