Re: msgid
  By: Pascal Schmidt to Maurice Kinal on Fri May 07 2004 05:39 pm

 >  MK>      The serial number may be any eight
 >  MK>      character hexadecimal number,  as long as it is unique - no two
 >  MK>      messages from a given system may have the same serial number
 >  MK>      within a three years.  The manner in which this serial number is
 >  MK>      generated is left to the implementor.
 > Note that it says "may be", there is no absolute
requirement for this. In fa
 > it goes on to say that an eight character hex number is *only* okay if it is
 > unique over a three year period. Plus nothing in the working forbids spaces 
 > the "serialno" field.
 > 
 > It also doesn't specify that the "origaddr" should be a
Fido address, becaus
 > then they wouldn't need to allow quoting in case there were spaces in there.
 > 
 > This standard isn't strict enough to allow any software making wild assumpti
 > except from the one that there'll be one space somewhere in the middle of th
 > MSGID. :)
 > 
 > Apart from that, the claim from that SBBS (was it that?) author that repeati
 > the same hex number in different casing makes a MSGID somehow *more* unique 
 > clearly bogus - if both numbers are always the same.

Actually, I just recalled the main reason for the repeated serialno: for MTAs
that parse the string from right-to-left expecting to find a hex serialno first
(or last). Of course MTAs shouldn't be *parsing* MSGIDs at all, but for those
that do, this improves the probablity of compatibility.

-Rob

                                                  digital man

Snapple "Real Fact" #148:
The tallest man was 8 ft. 11 in. 
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