[NNTP] Compressed LIST (and other commands) answers

[Urs Janßen]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 01:35:27AM -0800, Ade Lovett wrote:
> 
> On Dec 01, 2009, at 17:25 , Jeffrey M. Vinocur wrote:
> > A third (probably also bad) option would be to have something like "MODE
> > COMPRESS" that a client could send, after which the semantics of
> > multi-line responses would change (i.e. instead of just dot stuffing, 
> > the server/client would apply a more complex transformation) but all of 
> > the commands and response codes could stay the same.
> As you said, "bad".  This would be an utter nightmare to implement.

JFTR giganews has implemented something like this:

| < 200 news.mozilla.org
| > CAPABILITIES
| < 101 capability list
| < VERSION 2
| < READER
| < POST
| < LIST OVERVIEW.FMT ACTIVE ACTIVE.TIMES NEWSGROUPS
| < XFEATURE 1
| < XFEATURE-COMPRESS GZIP TERMINATOR
| < XFEATURE-METADATA BYTES
| < XFEATURE-USERAGENT
| < XFEATURES 1
| < .
| > list active *.test
| < 215 newsgroups follow
| < netscape.public.mozilla.test 611 2 y
| < mozilla.test 4354 2 y
| < .
| > XFEATURES
| < 390 send features
| > COMPRESS GZIP
| > .
| < 290 features updated
| > list active *.test
| < 215 newsgroups follow [COMPRESS=GZIP]
| < x
ËK-)NN,HÕ+(MÊÉLÖËͯÊÌÉIÔ+I-.Q034T0R¨äåB5165 ¢¨§.
| > group netscape.public.mozilla.test
| < 211 610 2 611 netscape.public.mozilla.test
| > xover -  
| < 224 xover information follows [COMPRESS=GZIP]
[binarie data]
| > quit
| < 205 goodbye

urs
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