Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!twinsun!eggert
From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Assumptions in mthreads about References/Message-Id lines
Keywords: mthreads, trn, references, message-id, standard
Message-ID: <1991Jan29.064624.357@twinsun.com>
Date: 29 Jan 91 06:46:24 GMT
References: <582@pallas.athenanet.com>
Sender: news@twinsun.com
Organization: Twin Sun, Inc
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Nntp-Posting-Host: ata

dlee@pallas.athenanet.com (Doug Lee) writes:

	my copy of standard.mn (_Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages_,
	October 20, 1986) advises against making ANY assumptions about message
	ids except that they

		1) are begun with '<' and terminated with '>', and
		2) contain no white space, non-printing characters, or extra
			'<'s or '>'s.

	... it is quite possible that the standard I referred to has been
	superseded, I welcome corrections.

Message-ids are not as simple as they should be.  No news system I know of
implements message-ids completely.  But if you want to know the current
news-related standards, the following list may be a bit more up-to-date than
your copy:

    RFC 822 specifies the format of messages; RFC 1036 uses this.
    RFC 977 specifies NNTP, the Network News Transfer Protocol.
    RFC 1036 specifies the format of Usenet articles.
    RFC 1123 amends RFC 822.
    RFC 1153 specifies the digest format sometimes used in moderated groups.

(An RFC is a Request For Comment, a de facto standard in the Internet
Community.  It is a form of published software standard, done through the
Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI.  Copies of RFCs are often posted to
the net and obtainable from archive sites.)