ietf-nntp GROUP Responses (was: Commetns on draft-15.pdf)

[Charles Lindsey]

In <yl8zbh5u64.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> writes:


>Charles Lindsey <chl at clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes:

>> But the interesting question is what happens if you try to read articles
>> from comp.foo, using GROUP + ARTICLE commands. You say "GROUP comp.foo",
>> and what response do you get?

>You get a response indicating that comp.foo is a valid group containing no
>articles.  You do not see the messages for comp.bar.

Hmmm! Not particularly helpful (I reckon saying the group did not exist
might have been better). Anyway, this is a matter for individual servers
to decide.


>> All I am saying is that if you return a 211 with apparently working
>> count and water marks, then it would also be better to report the group
>> that the server had actually made current, whether or not that was the
>> one you had asked for.

>I'm sympathetic to the idea, and maybe for the use of future more useful
>extensions it may be a good idea to note that the group name returned by
>GROUP can be different than the group name requested.  That doesn't seem
>to me to cause any harm, but I don't have a strong opinion on it either
>way.

OK. In that case may I suggest, at the end of 9.1.1.1.1:

	Note that the name of the group returned in the response may
	differ from that requested in the ggg parameter to the GROUP
	command in the event that the server has renamed the requested
	group, or aliased it to, or merged it with, some other group.

-- 
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