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Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.2.20030104192025.027f4e48@pop3.cris.com>
X-Sender: rrschulz AT pop3 DOT cris DOT com
Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 19:32:50 -0800
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Randall R Schulz <rrschulz AT cris DOT com>
Subject: Re: FAO: cfg: defaults
In-Reply-To: <20030105020850.GE11814@redhat.com>
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Chris,

I hope this isn't too far off-topic or excessive in its protractedness. If 
you'd like, I'll tease the cat a little and get some scratches on my arms.


Anyway, I found this in RFC 1738, "Uniform Resource Locators (URL)" 
(<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt>, lines 1183 through 1225):


-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
APPENDIX: Recommendations for URLs in Context

   URIs, including URLs, are intended to be transmitted through
   protocols which provide a context for their interpretation.

   In some cases, it will be necessary to distinguish URLs from other
   possible data structures in a syntactic structure. In this case, is
   recommended that URLs be preceeded with a prefix consisting of the
   characters "URL:". For example, this prefix may be used to
   distinguish URLs from other kinds of URIs.

   In addition, there are many occasions when URLs are included in other
   kinds of text; examples include electronic mail, USENET news
   messages, or printed on paper. In such cases, it is convenient to
   have a separate syntactic wrapper that delimits the URL and separates
   it from the rest of the text, and in particular from punctuation
   marks that might be mistaken for part of the URL. For this purpose,
   is recommended that angle brackets ("<" and ">"), along with the
   prefix "URL:", be used to delimit the boundaries of the URL.  This
   wrapper does not form part of the URL and should not be used in
   contexts in which delimiters are already specified.

   In the case where a fragment/anchor identifier is associated with a
   URL (following a "#"), the identifier would be placed within the
   brackets as well.

   In some cases, extra whitespace (spaces, linebreaks, tabs, etc.) may
   need to be added to break long URLs across lines.  The whitespace
   should be ignored when extracting the URL.

   No whitespace should be introduced after a hyphen ("-") character.
   Because some typesetters and printers may (erroneously) introduce a
   hyphen at the end of line when breaking a line, the interpreter of a
   URL containing a line break immediately after a hyphen should ignore
   all unencoded whitespace around the line break, and should be aware
   that the hyphen may or may not actually be part of the URL.

   Examples:

      Yes, Jim, I found it under <URL:ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc;
      type=d> but you can probably pick it up from <URL:ftp://ds.in
      ternic.net/rfc>.  Note the warning in <URL:http://ds.internic.
      net/instructions/overview.html#WARNING>.
-==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-

I guess this passage, appearing as it does in an appendix with the title 
"Recommendations ...", does not have the force of a standard per se, but 
it's good enough for me.

I notice as I peruse the RFCs that this recommendation (including URL: part) 
is widely used in the plain-text RFCs.

RFC 2369 "The Use of URLs as Meta-Syntax for Core Mail List Commands and 
their Transport through Message Header Fields" is also somewhat relevant and 
indicates that for its purposes within headers, the angle brackets are in 
fact mandatory and specified within the RFC proper.

Randall Schulz



At 18:08 2003-01-04, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 05:58:10PM -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
>>Chris,
>>
>>I think it's in one of the email RFCs. I remember tracking it down once 
>>during an (ill-considered) "debate" on one of the Bay Area Usenet groups.
>>
>>I should have made note of where I found it, but I didn't. I can find a 
>>variety of non-official mentions of this as a recommended convention using 
>>Google, but the relevant RFCs are numerous and voluminous.
>>
>>I'll try to find something definitive and authoritative and let you know. 
>>(It's one of those pet peeve / crusade things for me to get people to use 
>>these things, so the authority of the IETF is something good to have at 
>>hand.)
>
>Thanks.  I'm glad I asked.  I probably should have implemented something
>for my email reader a while ago.  This might spur me on to do that.
>
>Hmm.  I guess I'm getting off-topic now.
>
>*Slap*
>
>cgf


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