Re: ietf-nntp New wording on article numbers

[Tom Limoncelli <[e-mail]>]

I agree that the lo number should never be larger than the high
number.  No servers produce this situation and no clients are ready to
handle it.

However, we could use this to our advantage.  We could define that
newsgroup article numbers must roll over at 999999999 (which fits a
32-bit int) and then lo > hi simply means that the articles have
wrapped and the clients should handle things correctly.

That's really an issue for son-of-1036, but it is something to
consider none the less.

Another way to handle roll-over is just to require that clients notice
when the range produced by "group" has the lo *and* hi values that are
less than what is in the user's .newsrc as the
highest numbered article seen so far.


Of these two ways of handling roll-over, one is cleaner and requires
changes to all clients and servers.  The second is less clean, and
requires changes to all clients and servers but has a greater chance
of acceptance since it is easier to implement.

The third option, of course, is status quo.  Since the issue of
roll-overs is currently undefined and therefore a site issue, we could keep
it that way.


--tal
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