In
<6(_dot_)2(_dot_)5(_dot_)6(_dot_)2(_dot_)20070828122335(_dot_)02bf38c8(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net>
SM <sm(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net> writes:
Hi Charles,
At 07:16 28-08-2007, Charles Lindsey wrote:
An RFC2822 parser that will not accept SP after the ':' will already be
non-compliant, and will still be non-compliant even if absence of that SP
is relegated to the obs-syntax. Moreover, since 99.999% of emails
currently sent already include that SP, such a parser would be totally
useless in the current email environment - so I think we can safely assume
that no such parser exists.
We don't know the current email environment. Each of us sees a
subset of it. Put together, we get a better picture of it but we
still don't have the whole picture. I, for one, would not assume
that no such parser exists.
But if it _does_ exist, then it will be incapable of reading 99.999% of
emails as currently sent, so I doubt anybody would be using it. And for
sure it would already be non-compliant, so I do not think we need be
concerned with it.
An existing RFC2822 agent that currently _generates_ headers without that
SP (I am not aware of any) would then become non-compliant, but the
messages it generated would still be accepted by all current and future
2822-bis-compliant agents.
I thought that the aim of this update to RFC 2822 was not to make
existing implementations non-compliant.
No harm arises from making an existing implementation technically
non-compliant so long as all existing and future implementations are
REQUIRED to interoperate with it (as would be the case here).
The only thing such an implementation would not do is to interoperate with
Netnews.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl(_at_)clerew(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave,
CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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