Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-sieve-variables-04.txt

[Kjetil Torgrim Homme <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, 2005-07-20 at 14:54 -0700, Philip Guenther wrote:
> Kjetil Torgrim Homme <[e-mail]> writes:
> >there is no ABNF in [REGEX] to refer to, and a full list will be prone
> >to inaccuracies.  not that I expect any changes to the syntax allowed by
> >it, but ...
> 
> That would be an argument for moving :quoteregex to the regex draft.  I
> don't see any wording that limits support for :quotaregex to when the
> regex extension is also required, so even implementations that don't
> support regex will need to support :quoteregex.

ouch, you're right.  suggestion:

Modifier ":quoteregex"

        Every character with special meaning for :regex (".", "*", "?"
        etc.) is prefixed with "\" in the expansion.  This modifier is
        only available when the "regex" extension is in effect.

> To me, that means that
> this document needs to specify exactly what its behavior is.  (Yeah, you
> could make [REGEX] a normative reference, but ... ick.)
> 
> (Hmm, what if the regex extension is revised to support not just the
> normal ("extended") POSIX regexps but also the old "basic" regexps?  The
> quoting rules for the two are different.  (Basic regexps are _not_ a
> subset of extended regexps for functionality, though the GNU
> implementations have blurred that fact by extending them both.))

:quoteregex specifically works for :regex (and the added sentence above
locks the behavioural description to [REGEX]), if an :basicregex is
introduced, there will be no quoting modifier for it.

> Anyway, if :quoteregex isn't moved, then the minimal list of characters
> that are escaped by :quoteregex is:
> 
> \ . [ ^ $ ( ) { * + ? |

that's just too ugly a duplication of specification.  if we need to add
that, I'd rather split out the :regex bits.

> On an unrelated point, the [SIEVE] reference needs to be changed to the
> replacement I-D to dodge the "no side-effects in tests" restriction.

well, 3028bis must be published first, anyway, so I'll update the
reference when its done?
-- 
Kjetil T.