From: Terje Bless (link@tss.no)
Date: Wed Oct 20 1999 - 12:42:05 CDT
On 19.10.99 at 15:50, John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com> wrote:
>it is a warning that they WILL encounter messages with more than 21 id's
>why doesn't the second warning (that they WILL encounter things in the
>header which are NOT id's) have the same status? Particularly since it's
>going to happen more often?
>
> Trimming SHOULD be done by removing sufficient identifiers starting
> with the second so as to bring the total down to 21. Non-compliant
> programs will sometimes include more than 21 id's and/or text that is
> not id's.
Trimming SHOULD be done by removing sufficient identifiers starting
with the second so as to bring the total down to 21. Agents MUST be
prepared to deal with more then 21 identifiers.
NOTE: The need to handle more then 21 identifiers stems from the
fact that netnews software historically has not usually pruned the
References field. Legacy software will typically simply keep on
appending to the field until the 998 octet limit is reached (if
then). Nor have they usually removed broken identifiers. Authors
of current implementations must be prepared to handle this.
It's a MUST because it's an interoperability issue. We _know_ current
software will generate References fields that far exceede 21 Message-IDs.