ietf-nntp LIST NEWSGROUPS

[Charles Lindsey]

In <87el14icod.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> writes:

>Ken Murchison <ken at oceana.com> writes:

>> I would like to think that an empty response means that there are no
>> descriptions for the requested newsgroups.

>That's a correct interpretation.

Yes.

>You should be able to only return lines for the ones that have
>descriptions.  That's what existing implementations do.  Whatever wording
>implies otherwise should be tweaked.

>> In other words, does there have to be a one-to-one correspondence
>> between newsgroups in the active "file" and the newsgroups "file"?

>No.

I agree. If the server keeps a Newsgroups File (in the proper format),
then the command should just give you what is in the file, if anything. If
the server chooses to include dummy entries for cases where there exists
no description, then good luck to it, and the command will show those
entries.

If you really *must* know whether the server carries a given group, then
only the Active file is definitive.

(Actually, even that is not right. My server has just about every group in
Big 8 in its active file, because I accept all newgroup commands; but most
of those groups are empty, because I do not take feeds for them.)

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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