Re: FWS problem

[Henry Spencer <henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Frank Ellermann wrote:
> You can always convince me with this line.  But s-o-1036 says:
> | start-line      = header-name ":" space [ nonblank-text ] eol
> | space           = 1*( <HT (ASCII 9)> / <blank (ASCII 32)> )
> I don't see any mandatory SP in this syntax, I only see a WSP.

As in any standard, you have to read the text as well as the BNF; the text
is not just commentary.  Down in 4.2.3, son-of-1036 says: 

  In particular, RFC 1036 appeared to specify that the character
  immediately following the colon after a header name was required to be 
  a blank, and some news software insists on that, so this character MUST 
  be a blank. 

> Yes, but if message/news is a proper subset of message/rfc822,
> then why remove it from the IANA registry ?

Because message/rfc822 can be used to carry news without harm to its
readability.  If you want reliable bit-for-bit-correct transmission,
that's what application/news-transmission is for.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx