[NNTP] [2508] LIST capability handling

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Tue Nov 30 01:33:51 PST 2004


Issue: should we indicate in the CAPABILITES output whether or not each
keyword accepts a wildmat?

Ken Murchison said:
> 2508:  Is the wildmat allowed by some servers and not by others?  We 
> should just specify whether ACTIVE.TIMES accepts a wildmat or not, 
> instead of leaving it as optional.  That way this issue is moot.

I think you've misunderstood my point.

ACTIVE.TIMES, if provided, always accepts a wildmat. DISTRIB.PATS, again if
provided, never does. However, there's an arbitrary number of further
keywords that servers could provide, not documented in this specification.
For any given keyword, does it accept a wildmat or not? Does LIST XTRA.DATA?
What about LIST PRIVATE.GROUPS? Or LIST CHARGED.GROUPS?

Obviously, there's no way for this to be specified ahead of time. So do we
make clients suck it and see, or do we provide the information in the
CAPABILITIES output?

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:    +44 870 051 9937
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