ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: ABNF, and miscellany

2005-05-13 18:36:07

On Fri May 13 2005 01:45, Frank Ellermann wrote:

Bruce Lilly wrote:

e.g. the unused
  3*5[foo]
construct.  After some thought, you may realize that that's
equivalent to *5foo

I'd expect 0, 3, 4, or 5 foo.  If what you say is true it has
"a high astonishing factor", one of the taboos in my religion.
[...] 
You probably interpret "is equivalent to" as "syntactically
equivalent", everywhere, in all contexts, i.e. 3*5*1(foo).

That would be a syntax error.

OTOH it says "repetition before optional", and "optional" has
the same priority as "grouping",  So that's 3, 4, or 5 of an
optional foo => 0, 3, 4, or 5 foo.  If it ain't broken...

[foo] is equivalent to (has the same meaning as) 0*1foo. 3*5[foo]
is equivalent to [foo][foo][foo][[foo][foo]], which has the same
meaning (matches the same text) as *5foo, i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5
instances of foo.

next thing you know nobody is following the rules.

BTW, empty rules

The rule in this case is in the RFC 2026 requirements for advancement
to draft, which includes the removal of unused features.

     atom        =  1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE and CTLs>

...is hard to read, a proper enumeration like atext in RfC 2822
with the prose as comment is IMHO better.

Note that RFC 2234 still permits prose instead of a formal
specification.

USEFOR has gone so far down a rathole as to be unsalvageable

The last usefor-03 draft was very close to ready from my POV.
Otherwise I intend to salvage at least its msg-id syntax with an
"updates: 1036, 2822", if you're interested I can post it here.

Last I heard, the current and past USEFOR Chairs were adamant that
the USEFOR WG has no authority to "update" 2822.
 
My, how blithely you wave away other people's real problems. See
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/asrg/current/msg12017.html

That was about draft-hutzler-spamops-04, a perfectly sane future
BCP.

No, it and many others will do nothing to curtail spam, but will
adversely affect legitimate mobile users.

Of course.  But for all host names (FQDNs) under your control
you are free to publish which IPs they use if they say HELO in
an SMTP session.

No, because IP addresses are unpredictable (DHCP, different
access (airport lounges, cafes, etc.).

And there is no way to match the MAIL FROM notification path
domain to an IP address; that domain remains unchanged as a message
is transferred by multiple MATS on its way to its destination,
each of which will have a different IP address.

it will inconvenience many legitimate senders.

That's why it's a voluntary system for those wo really want it.

No, because (as I already mentioned) it conflates sending of mail
with a domain name for receiving mail.


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>