ietf-nntp HDR parameter proposal

[Charles Lindsey]

In <20030324113725.GU45272 at finch-staff-1.thus.net> "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive at demon.net> writes:

>Charles Lindsey said:
>> >(we could perhaps add:
>> >    BASEX  = BASE + XREF
>> >)
>> 
>> That's getting dangerously near having "any header you mention here will
>> work", which is exactly what Russ did not like about my original proposal
>> last year.

>No, that is *not* what I'm suggesting.

>I'm suggesting that the commonest case after "anything" and "just the
>base headers" is "just the base headers plus Xref", so either we have a
>package containing only Xref, or we have a package for base+Xref. Or both,
>of course.

That is the commonest form of the overview.fmt, but I am sure it will not
be commonest usage of the HDR command. Why should anyone particularly want
to use HDR on a variant header like Xref? Anyway, if we allow the OVERVIEW
parameter (with the implication that it really does the same thing as the
OVER command), then any problem with Xref just goes away.

>>> I would lean towards saying that "HDR" with no parameters means "will
>>> accept any header name or metadata item it knows about". I'm assuming
>>> there's no backwards-compatibility issue here; if there is, then use
>>> "HDR *" for this case and make "HDR" equivalent to "HDR +".
>> No, I think it is important to have the ALL parameter for that case.

>Any reason for "ALL" rather than "*" (I feel that the latter makes it
>clearer that it's special)?

"*" and "+" would tempt users into imagining that there was a wildmat
hiding in there.

And where parameters take fixed values, then they are just being used as
keywords, and I feel that good general practice is that keywords should
look like words. Funny glyphs should be used for funny things. And the
meaning of "ALL" is pretty obvious even if you do not read the document to
see what it means.

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