ietf-nntp Response code warts

Andrew Gierth andrew at erlenstar.demon.co.uk
Fri Dec 28 21:43:44 PST 2001


>>>>> "greg" == greg andruk <gja at meowing.net> writes:

 greg> I'm tasked with cleaning up an NNTP client library and noticed
 greg> two cases that require me to shuffle around a bit more state
 greg> than I'd like.  It's probably too late to do much about these,
 greg> but mentioning them can't hurt too much, can it?

 greg> The more annoying one is the 211 response.  This one seems to
 greg> stand alone in that it can return either a simple or multiline
 greg> response depending on what command (GROUP or LISTGROUP)
 greg> prompted it.

there seem to be enough clients using LISTGROUP that this is probably
not fixable. :-(

 greg> Slightly less irksome is LIST EXTENSIONS, returning 202 when
 greg> all its friends are using 215.  It also has two different
 greg> responses with identical meanings (202 followed by an empty
 greg> list, or 402).

likewise, this one is already in use, and probably not fixable without
breaking stuff unnecessarily.

-- 
Andrew.



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