From: Paul Overell (paulo@turnpike.com)
Date: Fri Mar 01 2002 - 11:32:06 CST
In message <200202281918.TAA05694@clw.cs.man.ac.uk>, Charles Lindsey
<chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes
>Here, as requested by Paul Overell, is the alternative header syntax
>without schemata or templates. I have shown the basic format from
>section 4, plus the headers in section 5. If this is considered OK, I
>will apply it throughout the system.
>
Yes please! I like the use of =/
>4. Basic Format
>
>
>5. Mandatory Headers
>
>5.1. Date
>
> header =/ Date-header
> Date-header = "Date" ":" SP Date-content *( ";" other-parameter )
> Date-content = date-time
> zone = (( "+" / "-" ) 4DIGIT) / "UT" / "GMT"
>
>5.2. From
>
> header =/ From-header
> From-header = "From" ":" SP From-content *( ";" other-parameter )
> From-content = mailbox-list
> addr-spec = local-part "@" domain
> local-part = dot-atom / strict-quoted-string
>
>5.3. Message-ID
>
> header =/ Message-ID-header
> Message-ID-header = "Message-ID" ":" SP Message-ID-content
> *( ";" other-parameter )
> Message-ID-content = msg-id
> id-left = dot-atom-text / no-fold-quote
> id-right = dot-atom-text / no-fold-literal
> no-fold-quote = DQUOTE *( strict-qtext / strict-quoted-pair )
> DQUOTE
> no-fold-literal = "[" *( dtext / strict-quoted-pair ) "]"
>
>
>[Observe that other-parameters are omitted from headers whuch are
>"unstructured".]
>
I have raised this in the past, but I am still very unhappy about the
use of other-parameters on headers we are using from RFC2822. They are
not ours to change.
There is a lot of interchange of messages between mail and news, any use
of other-parameters on RFC2822 headers will break mail.
If we think that other-parameters should be allowed on RFC2822 headers
(I don't) then we should get the mail RFCs updated to allow this.
Changing the syntax in news but not in mail is just asking for
interoperability problems.
Regards
-- Paul Overell T U R N P I K E