Subject: draft-ietf-drums-abnf-09.txt posted

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 09:48:47 +0800

There are some games that consist in seeing how close the players can come
to a particular mark.  I particularly like the British one I saw, recently,
which involves rolling a ball a considerable distance towards a pin.

Anyhow in the case of DRUMS, it appears that the goal is to see which
editor can submit a draft closes to the IETF internet-draft cutoff deadline.

I posted mine about 12 hours ago, so I suspect that Pete beat me handily. 

The only "interesting" change is the question of blank lines.  The new
syntax allows it, as well as allowing comments to start at the left margin,
rather than requiring that they be indented.

And no, I don't think it's worth posting a copy for folks early.  The
'official' I-D version will suffice, since things like Pete's draft are
vastly more important.

d/

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 13:06:55 +0100

Believe it or not, I found another nit :-)

Having a parser for ABNF that I apply to what people ask me to approve
gives me the most amazing experiences sometimes...

Look at this rule from another doc:

   label       = let-dig * (ldh-str)

Now, look at these definitions:

     repetition     =  [repeat] element
     
     repeat         =  1*DIGIT / (*DIGIT "*" *DIGIT)
     
     element        =  rulename / group / option /
                       char-val / num-val / prose-val
     
     group          =  "(" *c-wsp alternation *c-wsp ")"
     
     option         =  "[" *c-wsp alternation *c-wsp "]"

See what's missing?
Right - there's no way it's allowed to have spaces between
the repeat and the element in a repetition.

I *think* this was intentional, but wanted to run it by group consensus
before sending the offender back to the cleaners....

                            Harald A

-- 
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 08:24:53 -0800

>the repeat and the element in a repetition.

I vote (rather strongly) for NO white space between the repetition symbol
and the reference.

The example you gave does a good job of demonstrating my reason.  It looks
too darn much like someone is "multiplying" something.  I think it would be
wise of us to keep the notation from enouraging mis-understanding.

d/