101614 - Should we be case-insensitive with newsgroups? If so, in what cases?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(MailNews Core :: Networking: NNTP, defect)

Description

[K Chayka]

win32 build 2001092103, win98se

Usenet newsgroup: comp.lang.javascript

My ISP has this listed on their server as comp.lang.JavaScript (note the Caps)

Subscribing, reading posts, or posting new messages with the capitalized ng name
poses no problems. However, when replying to a post that uses just lowercase
letters in the ng name, an NNTP error occurs when sending.

Example:

1. Read a post sent to comp.lang.javascript
2. Reply.  The To: address is filled with comp.lang.javascript
3. Hit Send.  An NNTP error occurs (don't recall the exact text).
4. Change the To: address to comp.lang.JavaScript
5. Hit Send.  The message goes through.

NS 4.x is case-insensitive where ng names are concerned.  If there is an RFC
that specifies ng names are case-sensitive, terrific.  I'll point my ISP to it.
Otherwise, mozilla should behave like NS 4.x.  Apparently, it already does for
subscribing and reading.  Just include posting, too.

The work-around is to edit a bunch of files to change the ng name to all
lowercase, which is pretty clumsy.

Comment 1

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Confirming.

Comment 2

[Håkan Waara]

Ouch, this is bad.

I'll investigate.

Comment 3

[Håkan Waara]

Let's say the user is subscribed to "netscape.test", and tries to send a new
message to "Netscape.test". We fail there. Thus, the question is if we should be
case-sensitive and in what cases. I've been digging through code, and feel quite
confident that I could adjust the code to whatever suggestions you people might
have.

Surely, the "Netscape.test" failure can't be acceptable?  Stephend, Seth?

Stealing bug from Seth, for now ... (might reassign back)

Comment 4

[K Chayka]

Here's a question:
How likely is it that there would be two distinctly different ngs named
netscape.test and Netscape.Test (or other variations of cap usage)?

Comment 5

[Håkan Waara]

I would like to know if the popular news-servers are case-insensitive, and how
Outlook Express client behaves with the "Netscape.test" case.  Stephend, is this
something you know about?

Comment 6

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Outlook Express could not post your message.  Subject 'test', Account:
'news.mozilla.org', Server: 'news.mozilla.org', Protocol: NNTP, Server Response:
'441 437 Unwanted newsgroup "netscape.Test"', Port: 119, Secure(SSL): No, Server
Error: 441, Error Number: 0x800CCCA9

Comment 7

[Håkan Waara]

So it sounds like the servers are case sensitive, which basically means we'll
have to be too.

Comment 8

[K Chayka]

I experimented with NS 4.x on the secnews.netscape.com (non-secure) server.  I
edited hostinfo.dat and summary2.dat and changed the name of netscape.test to
netscape.Test, then fired up the newsreader and tried to get new messages.  No
go, got a "No such group" error, so apparently this particular server has
case-sensitive ng names.

My ISP's usenet server does not, however.  With NS 4.x, I can type upper or
lowercase ng names and the messages go through without error.  I just tried it
out on the alt.test and alt.test.a groups.  4.x seems to be taking it's
case-sensitivity direction from the particular server.  Is the NS 4.x behavior
wrong?

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Quite possible.  Although I'm not sure how RFC-compliant Outlook Express is... 
I've read RFC 2036 and 977, and can't seem to find where the case-sensitivity
for a server's groups is defined.  I can only find info about From: headers in
RFC 2036.  See http://people.netscape.com/stephend/nntp.html for a good link.

Comment 10

[K Chayka]

RFC 977 says in section 3.2.1 (Group command):

Note that the name of the newsgroup is not case-dependent. It must otherwise
match a newsgroup obtained from the LIST command or an error will result.

Wouldn't this apply to other references to the ng name?

Comment 11

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Try this server: 208.185.233.136:113, it has Inter_Caps type casing...

Comment 12

[K Chayka]

NS 4.x gave me a security error with port 113, so I couldn't try it for
comparison.  But try this in mozilla:

1. Add news account 208.182.233.136:113
2. Pick subscribe and download the groups list, but do not subscribe to any (yet)
3. Close the mail-news component
4. Edit hostinfo.dat for 208.182.233.136 and change the name of any group to all
lowercase letters
5. Start mail-news and subscribe to that group

Messages download and you can post new messages without any problem.  The wierd
thing with this server is that the capitalization in the ng name was changed on
server to match the original.

ng name in Sent folder message: group_name
ng name in posted message: Group_Name

It appears that it's the server's responsibility to deal with case-sensitivity
issues when needed.  At least this server and the netscape server do, albeit in
different ways.

Comment 13

[Håkan Waara]

Yes. I don't think we should care about case at all, that's up to the server to
handle.

However, if we somehow wrongly case a group (as per the original description for
this bug?) this should be fixed.

Can I get a testcase for that bug?

Comment 14

[K Chayka]

I don't think mozilla "wrongly" cased the group name as described in the
original problem.  It came down in the group list as comp.lang.JavaScript
instead of comp.lang.javascript.  There are other ng names in my ISPs
hostinfo.dat that are mixed case, but the vast majority are all lowercase
letters.  I don't know if there is any way to know at the time of subscription
whether the server uses case-sensitive names or not, and it would probably be
unwise to change the name that was downloaded in the list if cannot be determined.

There is currently no problem either subscribing or posting new messages using
comp.lang.JavaScript, just with replying to posts to comp.lang.javascript.  And
FWIW, Outlook Express behaves like NS 4.x on my ISPs usenet server, and ignores
the case in the ng names.  I checked it out with the alt.test posts I made
yesterday.

I doubt you can get on my ISPs server without an account there (it's local, not
a big national one), but I would suspect that other usenet servers are set up
the same.  Editing a ng name in the server's hostinfo.dat file (alt.test ->
alt.Test) would make a similar test case.

Comment 15

[Håkan Waara]

If you reply to a message in c.m.p.Javascript, without modifying the newsgroup's
name, will it lowercase it?

The expected behaviour would be to reply in the same casing as the subscribed
newsgroup is in.

Comment 16

[K Chayka]

> If you reply to a message in c.m.p.Javascript, without modifying the newsgroup's
> name, will it lowercase it?

No.  With both NS 4.x and OE, reply messages get the same To: address(es) as in
the original post.  Replies that end up on the server have whatever name was
used in the reply.  The case was not changed to all lowercase, probably because
case is irrelevant and they didn't need to bother.  The expected behavior seems
to be to use whatever ng name was in the post that's getting replied to, not to
substitute it with the subscribed name.

I don't know that substituting the ng name in a reply would necessarily be a
good idea, particularly with cross-posted messages.  And if the post is already
on the server, the ng name should be OK as is, so replying using whatever ng
name is in that post should be OK, too.  Shouldn't it?

Comment 17

[Håkan Waara]

That's exactly what reply should do.

Marking this as wontfix.

Comment 18

[K Chayka]

I'm confused by your last response, and the wontfix designation.  With a server
that doesn't have case-sensitive ng names, replies to posts that don't have
exactly the same casing as the subscribed name fail with an NNTP error in
mozilla.  This is not how NS 4.x and OE work.  As described in the original problem:

1. Subscribed name: comp.lang.JavaScript
2. Read a post on the server that was sent to comp.lang.javascript
3. Reply to that post.  The To: address is automatically filled with
comp.lang.javascript (the ng name in the original post) as expected.  Both NS
4.x and OE do this as well.
4. Hit Send Message.  NNTP error - bad ng name.  Both NS 4.x and OE send without
error.

IMO it's a bad thing for mozilla to require casing when the server doesn't,
particularly when NS 4.x and OE (surprisingly!) do The Right Thing.

Comment 19

[Håkan Waara]

True enough, it's a bug. But I don't know how to fix it.

Bienvenu, is it possible you could enlighten us how 4x (code-wise) got around
this problem?

Comment 20

[Håkan Waara]

Back to sspitzer.

Comment 21

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 22

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"

Comment 23

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

RFC 5536 says the following:
A <component> SHOULD NOT consist solely of digits and SHOULD NOT contain uppercase letters.  Such <component>s MAY be used only to refer to existing groups that do not conform to this naming scheme, but MUST NOT be used otherwise.

      NOTE: All-digit <component>s conflict with one widely used storage
      scheme for articles.  Mixed-case groups cause confusion between
      systems with case-sensitive matching and systems with case-
      insensitive matching of <newsgroup-name>s.

RFC 3977 says that things are case-sensitive unless explicitly said not to be, and doesn't say anything about newsgroup names (though it mentions in a later section that it may be necessary to canonicalize UTF8 group names).

In short, it looks like things are supposed to be case-sensitive according to specs. Unless this is really hurting people (given that it's been over 8 years since someone actually really touched this bug, I doubt so), this is WONTFIX.