Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!tale
From: tale@cs.rpi.edu (Dave Lawrence)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Suggested New Feature For All Newsreaders
Message-ID: <%D|-1%@rpi.edu>
Date: 8 Dec 89 02:06:02 GMT
References: <4585@itivax.iti.org> <4595@itivax.iti.org>
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Lines: 32

In article <4595@itivax.iti.org> scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes:

     '\n--[-]*[ ]*\n'

   (which is supposed to mean a '--' at the beginning of the line, zero or
   more additional dashes, an optional space, and end of line).

An optional space or spaces.  No brackets needed around the hyphen, either.

   In no case did this pattern appear twice in an article.  Nobody
   should take this data as gospel, tho.

Yes, don't.  And before you go rushing off to put it in your article
trimming code, be aware that it will dutifully nuke the rest of any
article that has the form:

beginning-of-line,two-or-more-hyphens,zero-or-more-spaces,end-of-line

For example, this will blow away any standard digest after the
introduction section.  

It is my understanding that the traditional pattern is "\n-- \n",
though many people have since come and not known about the space (like
GNUS as distributed) and hence "\n-- ?\n" is a better regular
expression for this.  I will be adding it as a variable option to
GNUS, but given that there really isn't very, very standard use of it
I expect to see only limited benefit.  I suppose limited benefit is
better than none, though.

Dave
-- 
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