Re: draft-hoffman-news-nntp-uri-01.txt

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:59:49 -0400, Al Gilman <Alfred.S.Gilman@IEEE.org>  
wrote:

> c. '*' as a group wildcard?
> This can be found 'in the wild' in running code in Lynx.
> http://lynx.isc.org/lynx2.8.5/lynx2-8-5/lynx_help/lynx_url_support.html#news_url

I looked at that, and I see now what it is meant to do.

But then I spotted another bug in my proposed text, so let me fix that  
first:


> At 2:16 PM +0100 9/22/04, Charles Lindsey wrote:

>>>
>>>      newsURL     = "news"  ":" [ news-server ]
>>>                       ( newsgroup-name | '*' | message-id )
>>>      news-server =  "//" server "/"
>>>      message-id  = id-left "@" id-right
>> Next, we really need some text to explain what resource is supposed to  
>> be retrieved by this URL. Something like:

Here we need to insert:
      "There are three cases:
       1. The <newsURL. contains a <message-id>:"
and then the text I had before:

>>   "The resource retrieved by this URL is the Netnews article with the
>>    given <message-id>. In a properly working Netnews system, the same
>>    article will be obtained whatever server is accessed for the purpose
>>    (assuming the server in question carried that article in the first
>>    place and that it has not expired). If no <server> is specified, the
>>    article is to be retrieved from whatever server has been configured
>>    for local use."

and now the other cases:
      "2. The <newsURL. contains a <newsgroup-name>:

       The resource retrieved by this URL is some means to gain access to
       the articles in the given <newsgroup-name> that are available on the
       given <server> (usually by invoking a suitable news reading agent
       initialized to access that group). If no <server> is specified, the
       groups are to be retrieved from whatever server has been configured
       for local use."

       3. The <newsURL. contains a '*':"

and here we can look at the RFC 1738 text:
>>>   If <newsgroup-name> is "*" (as in <URL:news:*>), it is used to refer
>>>   to "all available news groups".
which I would now interpret as:

      "The resource retrieved by this URL is some means to gain access to
       all the newsgroups that are available on the given <server>
       (usually by invoking a suitable news reading agent). If no <server>
       is specified, the access is to be to whatever server has been
       configured for local use."

So that is what it does, but is it really sensible to define a URL whose  
only effect is to fire up your local news agent? I still think it should  
go.

And of course all that wording could probably be pruned somewhat.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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Received on Thursday, 23 September 2004 11:12:50 UTC