From tale@ten.uu.net Wed Sep 16 19:57:36 1992 From: tale@ten.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: BNF rule for newsgroup names? Date: 16 Sep 92 18:08:27 GMT Organization: UUNET Technologies, Inc. Nntp-Posting-Host: ten.uu.net In henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > There is no longer any *technical* reason for the magic number 14, but if > you try to create newsgroups with name components longer than that, it is > a known fact that a substantial number of sites will have trouble with it. > This won't change soon. Thus, it is still best to keep components to a > maximum of 14, even though there is no longer a good technical reason > for that particular limit. newsgroup = name / name "." newsgroup name = 1*14(*namechar LOWERALPHA *namechar) namechar = ( LOWERALPHA / DIGIT / PLUS / MINUS / UNDERBAR ) LOWERALPHA = DIGIT = PLUS = <"+", 0x2B> MINUS = <"-", 0x2D> UNDERBAR = <"_", 0x5F>