glass@vixvax.mgi.com (William H. Glass) (02/16/91)
First, my apologies if this problem has been discussed here before. I run ANU-NEWS on a VAX/VMS system and consequently I don't often read this group. All of my news feeds run C-News, and every so often, I get an article with a header like the following: >Newsgroups: talk.bizarre >Path: maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca!lizac >From: lizac@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (herman) >Message-ID: <27AE1976.1264@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> >Subject:hanging >Sender: lizac@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (herman) >Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada >Date: Tue, 5 Feb 91 02:33:26 GMT Notice that the Subject header does not have a space following the ":". Now ANU-NEWS happens to require the space, and consequently gets rather upset. Depending on the exact circumstances of the error, the program may reject the article, ignore that header line, or assume that the headers end at the point (with the rest of the "headers" now becoming part of the body). RFC1036 (which describes news articles) says: > Each header > line consist of a keyword, a colon, a blank, and some additional > information. and in another place, it says: > Therefore, the rule is adopted that > all USENET news messages must be formatted as valid Internet mail > messages, according to the Internet standard RFC-822. The USENET > News standard is more restrictive than the Internet standard, > placing additional requirements on each message and forbidding use > of certain Internet features. However, it should always be possible > to use a tool expecting an Internet message to process a news > message. In any situation where this standard conflicts with the > Internet standard, RFC-822 should be considered correct and this > standard in error. RFC822 which describes more general messages, does NOT require a space following the colon. The above two sections of RFC1036 seem to be in some disagreement with each other. The way that I interpret it is that it is perfectly acceptable (but not required) for a news program to accept an article without spaces following the colons ("use a tool expecting an Internet message to process a news message"). However, the article produced by that "tool" should have the space included to comply with the earlier definition of a header line. I'd like to resolve this problem so that ANU-NEWS and C-News will peacefully co-exist with each other. Is there some knowledgeable person who can answer the following: 1) Am I interpreting the RFC's correctly? 2) Is this "feature" of ANU-NEWS a bug that should be fixed? 3) Or, is this a bug in C-News? 4) Or, is this a bug in NNTP (all my feeds come via NNTP)? 5) None of the above? Thanks for any option/comments/facts that anyone can pass on about this problem. -- William H. Glass Internet: glass@mgi.com Management Graphics, Inc. Phone: +1 (612) 854-1220 1401 E. 79th Street Minneapolis, MN 55425
geoff@zoo.toronto.edu (Geoffrey Collyer) (02/18/91)
William H. Glass: >RFC1036 (which describes news articles) says: >> Each header line consist of a keyword, a colon, a blank, and some >> additional information. C news hasn't been real compulsive in the past about enforcing some of the more obscure and pernickety requirements of RFC 1036 (to be fair, neither were the B news versions we used to use). There didn't seem to be any reason to be any stickier about header format than RFC 822 required, in particular. We have since had quite a few complaints from people running other news software that blows a blood vessel when handed an article that doesn't follow the letter of the RFC and so, as time permits, we are making C news more restrictive. In particular, the next patch should include code to require all the Required Headers specified by RFC 1036 (all you folks running sloppy mail-news gateways: now's the time to fix them). I'll add the "space-must-follow-colon" requirement to the to-be-done list. -- Geoff Collyer utzoo!geoff, zoo.toronto.edu!geoff