Message-ID: <AlF6ppm00WBw412NlI@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 13:14:13 -0500 (EST)
From: John Gardiner Myers <jgm+@CMU.EDU>
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Free insertion of linear-white-space
In-Reply-To: <19960307210741.18691.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
References: <19960307210741.18691.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>

I don't see how the free insertion rule in 3.1.4 could reasonably be
interpreted to apply to anything but structured field bodies.  Adding
emphasis:

        To aid in the creation and reading OF STRUCTURED  FIELDS,  the
        free  insertion   of linear-white-space (which permits folding
        by inclusion of CRLFs)  is  allowed  between  lexical  tokens.
        Rather  than  obscuring  the  syntax  specifications FOR THESE
        STRUCTURED FIELDS with explicit syntax for this  linear-white-
        space, the existence of another "lexical" analyzer is assumed.
        This analyzer does not apply  for  unstructured  field  bodies
        that  are  simply  strings  of  text, as described above.  The
        analyzer provides  an  interpretation  of  the  unfolded  text
        COMPOSING  THE BODY OF THE FIELD as a sequence of lexical sym-
        bols.

But anyway, instead of arguing how to interpret this dark corner of
822, why don't we take the practical approach.  Existing
implementations don't generate whitespace between the field-name and
colon and many existing implementations can't handle whitespace
between the field-name and colon.  Same thing goes for whitespace
inside the domain.

-- 
_.John G. Myers		Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU
			LoseNet:  ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up