[ietf-nntp] :bytes metadata

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Mon Dec 22 02:39:53 PST 2003


Ken Murchison said:
> Again, this decison should be made by what the client needs/expects, not 
> server design.  If the client only needs a "not to exceed" approximation 
> of the message size, then using the either canonical size or wire format 
> size is fine and we document it as such.  If the client expects the 
> *exact* canonical size, then we have a problem.  My guess is that an 
> approximation is good enough.

Actually this is a key point. What do clients do with the :bytes value?
I believe there's a consensus for "SHOULD equal the canonical size", but
should we be making any of the following statements (yes, I know they're
not all consistent with one another):

* :bytes MUST be not less than the canonical size.
* :bytes MUST be not greater than the canonical size.
* :bytes MUST be not less than the wire size.
* :bytes MUST be not greater than the wire size.
* :bytes MUST be less than the canonical size plus 999.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the canonical size minus 999.
* :bytes MUST be less than the wire size plus 999.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the wire size minus 999.
* :bytes MUST be less than the canonical size times 1.2.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the canonical size times 0.8.
* :bytes MUST be less than the wire size times 1.2.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the wire size times 0.8.

(possibly with other values of 999, 1.2, and 0.8).

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