[NNTP] Article Numbers Becoming Invalid (RFC 3977)

[Russ Allbery]

Julien ÉLIE <julien at trigofacile.com> writes:

> Hi Russ,

>> Oh, yes, that's the bit that I was missing.  Good point.  How about:
>>
>>    If there are no articles available with an article number lower than
>>    the current article number, a 422 response MUST be returned.

> That's nice.  However, is it enough precise regarding the case where
> the current article number is the first article?
> "lower than" may mean (abusively -- or translated into other languages)
> "lower than or equal to".

Yes, it should be lower than or equal to, indeed.

>> Ideally, we would have defined available somewhere as "retrievable by
>> ARTICLE."  I suppose I'm introducing the term "available" and your wording
>> above is introducing the term "lowest existing article number" and it
>> depends on which one seems clearer.
>>
>> I think the thing that was giving me pause about your proposed wording was
>> that it sounds a little like "lowest existing article number" might mean
>> something different than "number of the lowest existing article."

> The fact is that "lowest existing article number" (and the "next article")
> already exists :)

> See NEXT:

> 6.1.4.2.  Description

>   If the currently selected newsgroup is valid, the current article
>   number MUST be set to the next article in that newsgroup (that is,
>   the lowest existing article number greater than the current article
>   number).  If successful, a response indicating the new current
>   article number and the message-id of that article MUST be returned.
>   No article text is sent in response to this command.

> And of course, LAST defines the "highest existing article number" (and
> the "previous article").

Oh!  Okay.  Then I think you've convinced me your wording is the best,
since we're reusing an existing term.

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