CAP-12-e: Changing REQUEST-STATUS

[Bruce_Kahn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

In looking up something related to CALSCALE
I noticed that CAP-12-e makes an unmentioned change to iCalendars REQUEST-STATUS
property.  This change is NOT good NOR is it necessary.

iCalendar defines REQUEST-STATUS as:

   Format Definition: The property is defined
by the following notation:

     rstatus    = "REQUEST-STATUS" rstatparam
":"
                  statcode
";" statdesc [";" extdata]

CAP-12-e proposes changing it to:

   rstatus  = "REQUEST-STATUS"
rstatparam ":"
              statcode ";"
*(statdesc ) ";" *(extdata)

This makes statdesc optional now PLUS
it makes statdesc and extdata both multi valued.  This is a non-backwards
compatible change for no apparent reason that I can find in a quick archive
search on the topic.  These changes to REQUEST-STATUS seem to serve
no pratical purpose (What good are 2 "status descriptions" values
for 1 REQUEST-STATUS?).  Plus they change the legal possible values
the property can have which may make iCalendar parsers treat the property
as incorrectly formed and thus 'invalid'.

"Extending" REQUEST-STATUS
for CAP is to be expected but making a fundamental change to the property
is NOT.

Bruce
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Bruce Kahn                  
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