Joe Zeff <ahnkna...@zeff.us> wrote:
>
>On 01/03/2009 Beartooth wrote:
>> I forgot to mention the corroboration! I took that mizzawobble
>> fershlugginer little space out, and presto change-o : the message
>> cross-
>> posted.
>
>This should be reported as a bug. A properly written parser ignores
>whitespace.
Debatable, if not simply wrong. For some reason, the original Usenet
article format specs (RFC 850 and later 1036) defined a syntax that was
a "restricted" version of the e-mail spec in RFC 822, to the point where
it could be handled by a 7-year-old playing around with BASIC, who had
never heard the word "parser" and wouldn't understand it if he did. RFC
1036 clearly states "Multiple newsgroups may be specified, separated by
a comma." (And there is nothing in there that prevents newsgroups from
having spaces in their names.)
One reason for the "restricted" format could be that RFC 822 defines a
syntax that in some cases is complex enough that a correctly working
parser probably never has been written... (Of course there isn't a
Newsgroups: header in RFC 822, but plenty of other comma-separated
things where whitespace and line-folding is allowed in strange and
unexpected places.)
The USEFOR draft does away with this particular restriction (and
probably others):
newsgroup-list = *WSP newsgroup-name
*( [FWS] "," [FWS] newsgroup-name ) *WSP
- however it seems the USEFOR group didn't manage to produce an RFC in
its ~ 10 years of "working", and the final draft is expired since 18
months, leaving 1036 as the closest thing to a standard there is.
--Per
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