From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/34626 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Daniel Pittman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: SMTP question (not quite Gnus-related) Date: 08 Feb 2001 12:00:53 +1100 Organization: Not today, thank you, Mother. Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <87lmrij8e2.fsf@inanna.rimspace.net> References: <87y9vujkvd.fsf@torus.tenzing.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035170518 31366 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 03:21:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 03:21:58 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: crlf,sequence,period,smtp,line,explanation,data,containing Return-Path: Original-Received: from karazm.math.uh.edu (karazm.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.1]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DEBAD049D for ; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 20:02:36 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by karazm.math.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAC21033; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 19:02:18 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Wed, 07 Feb 2001 19:01:25 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from mailhost.sclp.com (postfix@66-209.196.61.interliant.com [209.196.61.66] (may be forged)) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA16339 for ; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 19:01:13 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from melancholia.danann.net (melancholia.danann.net [203.36.211.210]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BD5AD049D for ; Wed, 7 Feb 2001 20:01:40 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from localhost (melancholia.danann.net [203.36.211.210]) by melancholia.danann.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 823262A8C9 for ; Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:01:35 +1100 (EST) Original-Received: by localhost (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 05EF782039; Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:00:54 +1100 (EST) Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: (Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE's message of "07 Feb 2001 18:56:58 +0100") X-Homepage: http://danann.net/ X-spies: Ft. Bragg Project Monarch arrangements Marxist munitions South Africa explosion Monica Lewinsky Ft. Knox constitution Khaddafi clones Kibo Uzi cypherpunk User-Agent: Gnus/5.090001 (Oort Gnus v0.01) XEmacs/21.2 (Terspichore) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Original-Lines: 44 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:34626 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:34626 On 07 Feb 2001, Kai Gro=DFjohann wrote: > On 29 Jan 2001, Steven E. Harris wrote: >=20 >> ,----[ RFC821 4.1.1 ] >>| The mail data is terminated by a line containing only a period, >>| that is the character sequence "." (see Section 4.5.2 >>| on Transparency). This is the end of mail data indication >> `---- >=20 > Actually, there is a contradiction right here, because `a line > containing only a period' and the character sequence "." > are not the same thing. Actually, in SMTP, there isn't. The sequence of characters described *anywhere* in the SMTP stream is an unambiguous end-of-data marker. Any other sequence of bytes, including "." and the like is not because, in SMTP, lines end with (and only with) "". > I presume that the first part is the relevant part and the > "." thing is just an explanation.=20=20 Actually, it's a details, byte-by-byte explanation of exactly what a "line containing only a period" looks like, including the framing bytes. > Maybe the explanation makes it clear that there is no whitespace > either before or after the period. If they had said the character > sequence ".", then "foo." might be a valid suffix for a > message, which is not what the standard intends. 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. Your guess, though, is right. The intention of the example is to make certain that there is no ambiguity about exactly what "a line containing only a period" is. Daniel --=20 Language screens reality as a filter on a camera lens screens light waves. -- Casey Miller and Kate Swift, _Words and Women_ (1976)