[NNTP] LISTGROUP

Clive D.W. Feather clive at demon.net
Fri Mar 25 04:59:18 PST 2005


Charles Lindsey said:
>> For the record, our current syntax defines a newsgroup name as being a
>> wildmat item with no wildcards. That is, it is a string of any of the 88
>> printable ASCII characters except * , ? [ \ and ].
> Actually no. It is those ASCII characters you mention plus UTF8-non-ascii.

Oops: you're quite right.

> OTOH, as you say elsewhere in these threads, NNTP still says you
> SHOULD/MUST accept octets outside of the UTF8-non-ascii range, so a
> Chinese cooperating subnet might still get away with Big8, or whatever
> their code is called.

Not in a newsgroup name.

The formal syntax uses special non-terminals S-CHAR, S-NONTAB, and S-TEXT
that have two separate definitions: one that MUST be accepted, and one that
SHOULD be generated.
* Header content in articles (when unfolded) is S-CHAR.
* Header contents in HDR/OVER responses is S-NONTAB.
* Newsgroup description is S-TEXT.
Apart from article bodies and the HELP output, the entire remaining syntax
is UTF-8 based.

For the record:

                  MUST accept                 SHOULD generate
    S-CHAR        %x21-FF                     any UTF-8 from U+0021 upwards
    S-NONTAB      any except TAB              any UTF-8 except TAB
    S-TEXT        any but not beginning       any UTF-8, but beginning
                  with TAB or SP              with U+0021 or above

(in all the above, "any" excludes NUL, CR, and LF).

-- 
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
Demon Internet      | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Thus plc            |                            |



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