ietf-nntp Standardization of LIST OVERVIEW.FMT

[Clive D. W. Feather]

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In message <m3vfxxz1v5.fsf at merlin.emma.line.org>, Matthias Andree 
<matthias.andree at gmx.de> writes
>> [Q5] What approach do you think should be taken by the next NNTP
>> standard?
>
>The NNTP standard should standardize overview.fmt, but require that the
>first seven fields (excluding the Xref:full) MUST always be present and
>MUST always be in the order shown above (reference: the XOVER section
>RFC-2980), for compatibility with existing implementations.

Modulo the discussion of metadata, that's what the current draft does.

>(Should the standard also mention the problem of TAB characters in the
>original headers? Just as a reminder to the implementor. TAB is the
>field delimiter in XOVER output, so it cannot be used in the headers
>themselves. Leafnode just replaces any TAB with SPC in [X]OVER output.)

Current text for OVER (and HDR refers to it):

    For all fields, the value is processed by first removing all CRLF
    pairs (that is, undoing any folding and removing the terminating
    CRLF) and then replacing each remaining NUL, TAB, LF, or CR
    with a single space (for example, CR LF LF TAB will become two
    spaces).

There is an issue to be resolved, here. In the generic stuff about 
article formats, which in turn was derived from the specification for 
multiline responses, we've said that there MUST NOT be any NUL, lone CR, 
or lone LF in the article. Given that, TAB is the only thing that needs 
converting.

So do I simplify this text or do we need to change the multiline 
response text?

- -- 
Clive D.W. Feather     |  Internet Expert  | Work: <clive at demon.net>
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138  |  Demon Internet   | Home: <clive at davros.org>
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