[NNTP] wildmat-exact

[Peter Robinson]

> In draft26.pre-1.txt I find
> 
>      wildmat = wildmat-pattern *("," ["!"] wildmat-pattern)
>      wildmat-pattern = 1*wildmat-item
>        ; must not begin with "!" if not immediately preceded by "!"
>      wildmat-item = wildmat-exact / wildmat-wild
>      wildmat-exact = %x21-29 / %x2B / %x2D-3E / %x40-5A / %x5E-7E /
>           UTF8-non-ascii ; exclude * , ? [ \ ]
>      wildmat-wild = "*" / "?"
> and
>      newsgroup-name = 1*wildmat-exact
> 
> So it seems to me that a wildmat-exact (and hence a newsgroup-name) can
> contain (and in particular start with) a '!'.

Yes, I remember puzzling over this some time ago.

> That seems to me to make wildmat ambiguous.

I could have sworn that the comment about "!" was reflected in the
normative text last time I looked at it.  That would disambiguate it,
but it's still very far from clear, and it leaves odd gaps in how you
can use wildmat with newsgroup names starting with "!".  Is there any
good reason to allow group names containing "!"?

Regards,

Peter