ietf-nntp HDR

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Russ Allbery said:
>> Could we get away with using "bytecount" and "linecount" as the official
>> designations in LIST OFERVIEW.FMT? That would be incompatible with
>> existing usage, but who or what would actually notice the change?

> I don't understand what you think LIST OVERVIEW.FMT has to do with the HDR
> command.  The commands are completely unrelated.

Except that many implementations apparently restrict HDR to those headers
in the overview database. Hence my suggested wording in this area.

>> But having HDR Lines not return the content of a genuine Lines header
>> (if present) is just too ugly to comtemplate.
> So do we want HDR to be able to retrieve non-header information?  That's
> the fundamental question, isn't it?

If that information is in the database, yes.

> If we do, then we need some way of distinguishing between headers and
> non-headers, since no matter what we call the line count, someone may use
> a header by that name,

Yes. I support the suggestion of ":Lines" and ":Bytes".

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:  +44 20 8371 1138
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