Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Who generates the `Lines:' header field?
Message-ID: <1990Aug5.075054.11185@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Aug5.064837.23881@foster.avid.oz>
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 90 07:50:54 GMT

In article <1990Aug5.064837.23881@foster.avid.oz> cbp@foster.avid.oz (Cameron Paine) writes:
>... Which agent should put in the Lines: field and under what
>circumstances can it be omitted? Note that I'm asking about a standard, not
>about implementations.

The Lines: header is generated, or not, by the news software that originated
the article (or perhaps by a gateway, if the article was composed there
based on a mail message).  It is an optional header and can be omitted
under any circumstances whatsoever.  See RFC1036.

Digressing for the moment to implementations, B News generated Lines:.
C News does not.

The size of the article, in bytes, is generally more useful and is
available to newsreaders at the cost of a query to the filesystem,
without cluttering up every article with another header.
-- 
The 486 is to a modern CPU as a Jules  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
Verne reprint is to a modern SF novel. |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry