Re: [Nmh-workers] Thoughts: header/address parsing

[Lyndon Nerenberg]

On Aug 3, 2014, at 3:54 PM, Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> wrote:

> It's worth noting that all of the examples
> I've seen in RFC 733 and RFC 822 are in the "modern" form;

Never make the mistake of following the examples.  The [A]BNF is always 
normative.

Except when it's not (822, etc.) :-P

I'm not sure when 'the gospel is according to the grammar' came in to play, but 
it has been wired into my brain so hard that I'm sure it doesn't pre-date 1996 
(when I became directly involved in writing IETF 'standards').  It was 
certainly the case when IMAP4 arrived on the scene.  I recall having some 
rip-roaring flame-fests with people over their loose interpretation of SP in 
the IMAP grammars.

--lyndon

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