Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!nosc!logicon.com!Makey
From: Makey@Snoopy.Logicon.COM (Jeff Makey)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C News milestone
Message-ID: <846@Snoopy.Logicon.COM>
Date: 28 Nov 90 20:07:44 GMT
References: <NS|^SD|@rpi.edu> <4_377B@xds13.ferranti.com> <1990Nov27.230750.3478@looking.on.ca>
Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California
Lines: 35

In article <1990Nov27.230750.3478@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>RFC822 says that message-ids must be  <valid-domain-email-address> which
>is not just <unique@domain> but <validusername@domain>

Nowhere does RFC 822 (or any other relvant specification that I know
of) suggest that the local-part of a Message-Id field should be a
valid user name.  That would be rather silly, because then it would be
impossible to distinguish (using Message-Id) two different messages
from the same person.  (Boy, would *that* cut down on Usenet traffic!)

To quote most of the relevant RFC 822 syntax rules:

      msg-id      =  "<" addr-spec ">"            ; Unique message id

      addr-spec   =  local-part "@" domain        ; global address

      local-part  =  word *("." word)             ; uninterpreted
                                                  ; case-preserved

      word        =  atom / quoted-string

      atom        =  1*<any CHAR except specials, SPACE and CTLs>

      specials    =  "(" / ")" / "<" / ">" / "@"  ; Must be in quoted-
                  /  "," / ";" / ":" / "\" / <">  ;  string, to use
                  /  "." / "[" / "]"              ;  within a word.

It is quite clear that any of the objectionable characters are allowed
by RFC 822 if they are quoted.

                           :: Jeff Makey

Department of Tautological Pleonasms and Superfluous Redundancies Department
    Disclaimer: All opinions are strictly those of the author.
    Domain: Makey@Logicon.COM    UUCP: {ucsd,nosc}!snoopy!Makey