Re: SMTP question (not quite Gnus-related)

["Steven E. Harris" <steven.harris@tenzing.com>]

Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net> writes:

> Specifically, the explanation makes it possible to write a
> stream-oriented SMTP `DATA' reader easily. To be strictly conforming,
> you read bytes and scan for the sequence described. When you see it and
> it alone, terminate the reading of the `DATA' command.

That's exactly what I've written - two of them, in fact. Each is based
on a different state machine, depending upon differing interpretations
of RFC821. My question still stands, though:

  What about an "empty" message?

Is this supposed to be okay?

,----
| DATA<CRLF>
| .<CRLF>
`----

If so, then where is the terminator for the "DATA" command string?
That first <CRLF> either belongs to the "DATA" as a command
terminator, or to the period as the start of the message
terminator. It can't be both. Most MTAs accept it, though.

I'm now thinking that a completely empty message like the one above
isn't a valid RFC822 message anyway, but it still seems like there's a
hole in RFC821 on this.

-- 
Steven E. Harris        :: steven.harris@tenzing.com
Tenzing                 :: http://www.tenzing.com