[NNTP] Article Numbers Becoming Invalid (RFC 3977)

[Russ Allbery]

Julien ÉLIE <julien at trigofacile.com> writes:

>> Well, somewhat more precisely, 420 is only a valid answer to ARTICLE
>> without an argument if the group was empty at the time of the GROUP
>> command.  If the group was not empty but the current article is
>> unavailable, 423 should be used instead.

> It is indeed the explained behaviour:

>   If the argument is a message-id and no such article exists, a 430
>   response MUST be returned.  If the argument is a number or is omitted
>   and the currently selected newsgroup is invalid, a 412 response MUST
>   be returned.  If the argument is a number and that article does not
>   exist in the currently selected newsgroup, a 423 response MUST be
>   returned.  If the argument is omitted and the current article number
>   is invalid, a 420 response MUST be returned.

> We do not know the answer to give when the argument is omitted and the
> article does not exist in the currently selected newsgroup!

>>> And it is also what is implemented in the NNTP reference
>>> implementation, INN, and probably other news servers.
>>
>> I'm almost tempted to propose an erratum for this, but changing a return
>> code is probably more than we really should do in an erratum.

> Well, I think that would not change the code at all.  The code is
> currently *unspecified* in RFC 3977!

> So the erratum would basically just mention the code to use.  And this
> code is 423.

Hm, that's a very interesting point.  Clive, what do you think?

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