[NNTP] CAPABILITIES problem!

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Wed Aug 3 00:30:50 PDT 2005


Ade Lovett said:
> Indeed, I'm toying with the idea of an extension to allow for retrieval
> of an article by an MD5 hash of the message ID in all places where
> <messageid> is currently used.  Given that such an implementation would
> be of completely fixed length, it would seem to deal nicely with the
> edge case of ultra-long message IDs potentially messing things up.

I don't follow. Message IDs are limited to 250 characters, so where's the
edge case? If someone puts an illegally-long message ID in a command, why
couldn't they put an illegally-long hash as well? [Both should just
generate a 501 response.]

> My vote is to remove the limit on the capabilities keywords entirely.  I
> could possibly be persuaded for a 64 (or even 128 character) limit, but
> the current limit is far too small.

I'm happy with no limit if nobody can see a problem. Remember that the
limit we're talking about is command names and capability labels (the first
word on a capability line), not other arguments, which are already
unlimited.

-- 
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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Thus plc            |                            |



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