🚀 go-pugleaf

[In article <1990Feb12.181547.27427@talos.uu.net>,
     kjones@talos.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes ... ]

> Barton E. Schaefer writes:
>  >      *   day_number month_name year_number time timezone ...
>  > 
>  > 	5 Feb 1990 14:05:57 PST
>  > 	5 Feb 1990 14:05:57 -0800
>  > 	5 Feb 1990 14:05 PST
>  > 	(The first two are RFC822 format, which, interestingly, RFC882
>  > 	violates in its own examples section -- there, it uses something
>  > 	like the last one, except with no `:' between hours/minutes.  No
>  > 	one has ever complained about encountering that format.)
> 
> None of these are RFC 822 complaint because the year number is supposed
> to only have two digits.

That is no longer true; see the following excerpt:

RFC1123                  MAIL -- SMTP & RFC-822             October 1989

      5.2.14  RFC-822 Date and Time Specification: RFC-822 Section 5

         The syntax for the date is hereby changed to:

            date = 1*2DIGIT month 2*4DIGIT

         All mail software SHOULD use 4-digit years in dates, to ease
         the transition to the next century.

         There is a strong trend towards the use of numeric timezone
         indicators, and implementations SHOULD use numeric timezones
         instead of timezone names.  However, all implementations MUST
         accept either notation.  If timezone names are used, they MUST
         be exactly as defined in RFC-822.

         The military time zones are specified incorrectly in RFC-822:
         they count the wrong way from UT (the signs are reversed).  As
         a result, military time zones in RFC-822 headers carry no
         information.

         Finally, note that there is a typo in the definition of "zone"
         in the syntax summary of appendix D; the correct definition
         occurs in Section 3 of RFC-822.


(Followups are directed to comp.mail.headers.)

-- 
   Steve Yelvington at the (thin ice today) lake in Minnesota