Re: [sieve] Notify (RFC 5435) questions

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> On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, Barry Leiba wrote:
> ...
> > But I still contend the definition in 5229 of what bits of the core
> > 5228 syntax can be replaced by variables isn't sufficiently clear.
> > Unfortunately, (1) we all know what we meant, and (2) neither of us
> > has yet come up with text that cleanly fixes the issue.
> >
> > As an aside, there *is* an unarguable erratum in 5229: where the text
> > says "multi-line-dotstuff" it should be "multiline-dotstart", and
> > where it says "multi-line-literal" it should say "multiline-literal".

> Yep, those are clearly typos.


> > For an example of the problem of clarity, let's look at an example from
> > 5229:
> >
> >           fileinto "INBOX.lists.${2}"; stop;
> >
> > I contend that's not valid from a strict reading of the grammar,
> > though we clearly want to allow it.  We've said that a variable can
> > stand in for a "quoted-string", but we did not say it could stand in
> > for a PORTION of a quoted string -- specifically, for a quoted-text
> > construction (and I'm not sure even that would do it, given the 5228
> > grammar).

> Umm, what?  5229, section 3p2 says:
>    When a string is evaluated, substrings matching variable-ref SHALL be
>    replaced by the value of variable-name.

> *Substrings* matching variable-ref are replaced.  That seems to me to be
> an explict statement declaration that it "stands in" for a portion of a
> string.  Where do you see syntax or requirements that say that the entire
> string must match the variable-ref syntax?


> > I'll also note that since we don't include "number" in the
> > constructions that can be substituted, we can't use variables in the
> > "size" test, for example.  So this is syntactically invalid:
> >
> >        if size :over ${max} {
> >            discard;
> >        }
> >
> > I'm not sure whether or not that was intended.

> I seemed clear enough to me at the time.  The fact that we call out the
> syntax elements for quoted-string and multiline strings would seem to back
> up that people knew we were just talking about strings.

In case it isn't obvious, I will also point out that this is a change to core
Sieve syntax. That's a very big deal and not a change to be considered lightly.

				Ned