[NNTP] [2508] LIST capability handling

[Russ Allbery]

Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:

> 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?

Er, the client should look at the specification for that particular LIST
command to figure out whether it takes a wildmat.  If we're not requiring
a specification here in some form, I think we may be going down the wrong
road.  If the client doesn't have access to a specification, it's going to
have a lot more problems than just not knowing whether to include a
wildmat, like having any clue whatsoever what the output is supposed to
mean.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>