Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!smoke.cs.toronto.edu!moraes
Newsgroups: news.software.b
From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes)
Subject: Re: The anomolous handling of bad dates in cnews.
Message-ID: <91May23.151914edt.1030@smoke.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <1991May23.024533.9731@world.std.com> <1991May23.035202.31699@mp.cs.niu.edu> <b8bHel-b@cs.psu.edu> <1991May23.115029.10971@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 23 May 91 19:19:32 GMT
Lines: 18

Unfortunately, inews is not exclusively used for human input.  Sites
have been known to use it for gatewaying mailing lists, for instance.
(Bad idea, given inews performance) Scripts will get used for things
the authors did not intend they be used for; given the cost of errors
on Usenet (as our usenet mailbox fills up with hundreds of newgroups
caused by escaping control messages :-), it's best to be cautious.

Note: if you leave the date header out, inews will fill in a valid
date for you.  And it does rewrite the date if it is understandable.
There's no reason for posting agents to stick Date: headers on before
handing articles to inews.  And if they do insist on crafting their
own Date: headers, the authors of said posting agents should have made
sure they at least provide unambiguous dates -- getabsdate will accept
almost anything. (the main exception being all-numeric dates.  Geoff
even hacked it to accept VMS dates, despite his religious
persuasion!:-)

	Mark.