Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!bbn.com!papaya.bbn.com!rsalz
From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Ideas for Message-ID's
Message-ID: <3427@litchi.bbn.com>
Date: 21 Mar 91 19:52:08 GMT
Organization: BBN Systems and Technology, Inc.
Lines: 26

I know there are several Message-ID formats out there:
	B news sequence-number style.
	C News verbose date style.
	Various radix-64 compressions of the above.
How about this one
	<yydddss.pppp@host>
where
	yy	Last two digits of the year
	ddd	The day of the year, 000-365.
	ss	The current number of seconds, 00-59.
	pppp	The Process ID (not fixed format).
	host	The hostname (not fixed format).
For example
    9203212.1856@papaya.bbn.com
This is 27 bytes long.  The host-part is invariant, and the unique-part is
only 12 bytes, but it will vary by a couple depending on the pid.

Obviously, the only time this will have a problem is if the same process
submits two articles within the same second.  I don't think that's likely
to happen.

Comments?
	/r$
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