ABNF (was: New draft)

[Frank Ellermann <[e-mail]>]

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> RFC 4234 is a good example of a format whose i18n rules are unclear.

| NOTE:
|
|     ABNF strings are case-insensitive and the character set for these
|     strings is us-ascii.

That's clear.  A tricky part could be <name> in chapter 2.2, because...

|     rulename       =  ALPHA *(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-")

...in chapter 4 could be interpreted as different from <name>.  Now I've
found a typo in 4234 chapter 2.4:

   although Appendix A (Core) provides definitions for a 7-bit US-ASCII
   environment as has been common to much of the Internet.

It's Appendix B, not Appendix A (Acknowledgements).  Chapter 4 is based
on Appendix B, a <rulename> is clearly ASCII.  IMO RFC 4234 is fine, its
LWSP is an exception, FWS as in RFC 2822 (excl. obs-FWS) would be better.

Unlike an utter dubious variant in RFCs 2068, 2069, 2616, 2617, and 2831,
where nobody sees the potential damage caused by <LWS> hidden in a #rule.

Frank