On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:49:49 -0000, Eric Allman <eric+dkim(_at_)sendmail(_dot_)org>
wrote:
The revised wording achieves what it was intended to achieve,
namely that an empty/absent <body> result in a single <CRLF> to be
hashed.
What is not clear is WHY this alternative was chosen (as opposed to
letting it result in an empty <body>).
I could easily envision a situation where a completely empty body got
sent via BDAT to an intermediate MTA that had to convert it to DATA
format for retransmission. It wasn't hard to make a guess that some
such MTAs might a CRLF before the final dot. It's not likely, but
possible, and canonicalizing in this way prevents that problem.
Well that is a reason worth considering (more than can be said of Hector's
confused arguments). But I would have though that a BDAT -> DATA converter
would simply have rendered an emtpy bid as an absent body (which is
perfectly possible under RFC 2821). So not a very strong argument.
Other than that it's an arbitrary choice.
Indeed, but it is odd that the arbitrary choice turns out not to be the
simplest choice.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131
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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