From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/9091 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Karl Kleinpaste Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: user-mail-address Date: 05 Dec 1996 13:15:49 -0500 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035149169 16442 80.91.224.250 (20 Oct 2002 21:26:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 21:26:09 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from ifi.uio.no (0@ifi.uio.no [129.240.64.2]) by deanna.miranova.com (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id KAA22547 for ; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 10:45:05 -0800 Original-Received: from maud.ifi.uio.no (0@maud.ifi.uio.no [129.240.74.2]) by ifi.uio.no with ESMTP (8.6.11/ifi2.4) id for ; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 19:15:54 +0100 Original-Received: from pocari-sweat.jprc.com (karl@pocari-sweat.jprc.com [207.86.147.217]) by maud.ifi.uio.no ; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 19:15:52 +0100 Original-Received: (from karl@localhost) by pocari-sweat.jprc.com (8.7.6/8.7.3) id NAA00670; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 13:15:50 -0500 Original-To: Gnus In-Reply-To: Rich Pieri's message of 05 Dec 1996 12:00:40 -0500 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:9091 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:9091 Jason R Mastaler writes: >> Is there a way to make this more flexible? Rich Pieri writes: > Internet host names are lowercase. Anything that attempts to resolve > Internet addresses by name will downcase the name before feeding to the > resolver, and then the resolver should do it as well just to be sure. > Thus, there is no reason to use anything but lowercase in host names. Not even close, actually. Until recently (as in, last 5-7 years or so), the Internet was almost totally an uppercase-oriented sort of place, in terms of hostnames and, until the advent of UNIX, usernames. A very great many places with long histories of Internet/ARPANET presence still have nameservers which tend to be uppercase-centric. I used to work at Carnegie Mellon Univ (Class B network 128.2, the 1st Class B allocated ever), and it is totally uppercase-oriented in its nameservers. There is no resolver software anywhere that I've seen which automatically downcases everything put to it. That's not to say comparisons pay attention to case: The requirements stipulate case- insensitive comparisons, but any mix of case is permitted. And indeed, many organizations prefer to list themselves in a mix of case to make more clear the nature of the name. CompuServe has been generating mail addresses as x.y@CompuServe.COM since their mail gateway was created, in 1988-89. (I built [the Internet side of] it. Their mailer software was set up to generate mixed case quite deliberately.) If Gnus is aggressively downcasing addresses, it is broken, and should be fixed. Casification of hostnames is an organizational/personal preference. --karl [1015] [13:03:32] pocari-sweat:~> host -a cs.cmu.edu. The following answer is not authoritative: cs.cmu.edu 180000 IN A 128.2.222.173 cs.cmu.edu 999999 IN NS BANANA.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU cs.cmu.edu 999999 IN NS PEACH.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU cs.cmu.edu 999999 IN NS BLUEBERRY.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU cs.cmu.edu 999999 IN NS MANGO.SRV.CS.CMU.EDU cs.cmu.edu 999999 IN SOA DIST.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU GRIPE.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU( 100 ;serial (version) 3100 ;refresh period 5600 ;retry refresh this often 3600000 ;expiration period 600 ;minimum TTL ) ... [1016] [13:03:54] pocari-sweat:~> host -a morningstar.org. The following answer is not authoritative: morningstar.org 172800 IN NS scampi.MorningStar.org morningstar.org 172800 IN NS NS2.NET.OHIO-STATE.edu morningstar.org 172800 IN NS scampi.MorningStar.org morningstar.org 172800 IN NS NS2.NET.OHIO-STATE.edu