From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 04:08:18 CDT
In <3EBFA5C8.9080704@Sonietta.blilly.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>Charles Lindsey wrote:
>> "Re: " will be an interesting borderline case because, as
>> Bruce has pointed out, it could benefit from some ABNF assistance.
>For clarity, my point was not that any "assistance" is merely desirable.
>It is that if Subject is to be redefined as something other than
>unstructured -- and the "Re: " hack does exactly that -- then it
>is *necessary* that the ABNF clearly indicates the structure.
No, there is always the choice between describing it syntactically and
describing it by verbiage. Anyway, you will see that my latest proposal
contains both options, so you can all discuss which you prefer.
>It is
>unreasonable to knowingly produce a document which is internally
>inconsistent, and ABNF that says something different from the
>text is a gross inconsistency if it is unnecessary
Sure, but nobody is suggesting that the text should be inconsistent with
the ABNF. It just needs to be clear in what it is or is not prescribing.
>The same applies to SP-after-colon, etc., which was also included
>in the sample ABNF for Subject. Indeed, the discussion is about
>the implications of the differences between the draft and RFC 2822,
>one of which is that substantive differences make reference to
>2822 of limited utility -- if *every* header field in a news
>article requires different ABNF from 2822 (and those defined
>in other RFCs as well; 2045, 2156, etc.), then the ABNF for
>each needs to be specified.
Yes, and that is exactly how it is done in the present draft. Each header
is provided with an ABNF syntax. But, for those headers which, apart from
that SP, are essentially the same as their RFC 2822 counterparts, the ABNF
then immediately points you back to the relevant RFC 2822 syntax.
-- 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 Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5