In <p06250100c3b2cdde7d7b(_at_)[74(_dot_)134(_dot_)5(_dot_)163]> Pete Resnick
<presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com> writes:
Things to note:
1. obs-qp, obs-body, and obs-unstruct each have NUL. obs-ctext,
obs-qtext, and obs-dtext don't. Is that what's desired? (I'm happy to
move NUL into all of them. I'm more worried about removing it from
all of them.)
This is a good time to ask how long it is intended that the obs-syntax
should remain in the standard. One hopes that it will no longer be a
REQUIREMENT to recognize it in 1000 years time, but maybe some earlier
deadline might be in order.
How burdensome is it to have to recognize this ancient stuff? I suspect
that NUL and naked CR and LF are the bits that cause the most problem -
the rest is probably easier. So one might like to remove the NUL and naked
CR and LF sooner rather than later. For sure, there should no longer be a
need to recognize ANY obs-stuff coming off the wire, even today. We are
concerned only with ancient emails that are still in people's archives.
So, a Question: Were NUL and naked CR and LF ever used in significant
quantity in real emails (as opposed to being theoretically allowed by RFC
822 and its predecessors)?
2. text moved into the body discussion, and specials moved into the
atom discussion. Glad to move them elsewhere if you think necessary.
You appear to have done a good job of getting rid of NO-WS-CTL.
A couple of typos:
In 2.2 s/ unfolding"/ "unfolding"/
In 3.2.2, %d42-91 appears to have got omitted from <ctext>.
Which leaves just two items, wearing my NETNEWS/USEFOR hat.
A. I see that <quoted-pair> is still present in <dcontent>. I had hoped
that, with the more recent discussions about domain-literals that resulted
in the disappearance of NO-WS-CTL, similar arguments would have persuaded
you to remove that anomaly. Actually, removing <quoted-pair> from
<no-fold-literal> is all that is actually needed for NETNEWS compatibility
- removing it from <domain-literal> as well would just be tidier.
B. As regards the use of SP after the ':' in header fields, I proposed the
following wording (or something like it) on Sept 20th:
Although in all header fields the CFWS following the colon is optional,
it is customary to place at least one SP there; moreover such a SP is
mandatory in some related protocols (notably [NETNEWS]). In order to
facilitate interoperability with such related protocols, that SP
SHOULD normally be present.
{[NETNEWS] would then be an informative reference to the current USEFOR
draft, which has already passed IESG review.}
I would still like to see text like that included somewhere.
--
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
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