ietf-nntp Additional arguments

[Russ Allbery]

Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:

> Section 4 reads in part:
>     Commands ... MAY be followed by one or more arguments.

> Is it permitted, or is it an error, to provide more arguments than required
> by the command ? For example, given:

>     GROUP misc.test demon.service

> which of the following applies ?

> (1) The server MUST give the 501 syntax error generic response.

I think the server MUST reject such commands with a syntax error.  Even if
that's not existing practice for AUTHINFO, I think it's very much worth
doing.  It's *mostly* existing practice, enough so that I highly doubt
there are any clients relying on the other behavior, and I think we should
clearly pick one approach.

> I would think that (1) applies, but I can find no wording to say so. If
> people agree, the best place to do this would be section 4.1.1:

>     If there is a syntax error in the arguments of a recognised
> !   command, including the case where more arguments are provided
> !   than the command specifies,
>     the response code 501 MUST be returned.

I agree with this change.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>