Stan Ryckman has written:
> I'd be confused; would "Posted-Date" be the date originally mailed,
> or the date received/sent by the list? And while X- may not be
> required, it would be safer. From RFC 822:
[. . .]
Thanks to the many subscribers who referred me to section
4.7.5 of RFC 822.
I am well familiar with the entry for USER-DEFINED-FIELD,
and have always used 'X-' for headers I define. However, one
of the subscribers suggested that my use of 'X-' was not
necessary or perhaps even undesirable.
I was wondering whether there is a source at a higher level
than RFC 822 explaining when to use 'X-' and when not to use
it in user or list headers.
As for the field in question -- I suggested
'X-Original-Date: ' to reproduce the 'Date: ' field in the
posted message before it is remailed to the list. The
response suggested 'Date-Posted: '.
I agreed that "posted" is better English usage than
"original," but remain unsure on why the 'X-' was
deleted. RFC 822 suggests that the 'X-' should be there.
Yes, "posted" is ambiguous to a certain extent. In most
cases, the "posted" field would be earlier than the SMTP
"date" field. However, some users may stamp their messages
with a date significantly in the future, leading to
confusion over which field has the subscriber's date.
The problem with using an unambiguous 'X-Date-Resent: '
field is that the list software has to create it. It would
be several seconds to several hours earlier than the moment
it is actually remailed.
If the list software generates no 'Date: ' field at all,
after converting the sender's date to 'X-Original-Date: ',
then the site's SMTP -- or /usr/lib/sendmail -- would create
the 'Date: ' header, to the greatest accuracy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vicki Richman vicric@panix.com National Writers Union
Harlem New York PGP 2.6 UAW Local 1981, AFL/CIO
"The fare shall not be fowl." -Credo of the Vegetarian Umpires Association
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow-Ups:
References:
|
|
