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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: A new framework for embedding ... without CORBA
From:       Dawit Alemayehu <adawit () earthlink ! net>
Date:       1999-10-01 23:00:20
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On Fri, 01 Oct 1999, Graham TerMarsch wrote:
> adawit@earthlink.net wrote:
> [.....snip.....]
> > > I'd looked at what'd really be involved in doing one, and didn't think that
> > > it'd be too hard to do.  However, I did have question as to how NNTP URLs
> > > would be represented, considering that NNTP itself has several other
> > > extensions (e.g. 'xpat') that don't really map across into any sort of URL.
> > > Other things such as "how do I just pull down the _headers_ for a single msg,
> > > without the msg body" also left me as a bit puzzled as to how they'd map
> > > properly.  I've read through the RFCs outlining NNTP URLs and for all that
> > > they at least define how to get all of the subjects for a given group and a
> > > message within the group, I didn't find anything else in there that'd be
> > > useful for helping solve those issues.
> > >
> > > If someone out there has ideas on how these sorts of things could be mapped,
> > > or that could point me in the direction of another kioslave that'd be a good
> > > example to start with, I'd be willing to sit down and see what I can come up
> > > with to create one for NNTP.
> > 
> > Well, I think I may be able to point you in the right direction with one of
> > the things you mentioned up top.  The url stuff.  I am not familiar with the
> > several url extensions that NNTP has, but I think some type of internal
> > mapping is possible.  For example, the SMB protocol will probably use "smb://"
> > or "smb:/" to denote a resource in a Windows server, however, a user will be
> > allowed to type in \\HOSTNAME\SHARE.  A conversion is done as necessary from
> > the \\HOSTNAME\SHARE format to the "smb:/" format internally or vise-versa.
> > It won't matter which way you want to go as long as the resource identifier
> > is unique.  Can you give some examples of the NNTP url extensions ?  I am only
> > familiar with the NNTP url as it is defined in RFC 1738 ...
> 
> I'd been looking at both the NNTP url as defined in RFC1738, as well as the
> proposed updated provided by RFC2396 (which as I understand it is still
> considered draft, so do correct me if I'm barking up the wrong tree).  2396
> and 1738 seemed to outline the basis of what the URL looks like, and I can see
> that in the sense of wanting to either "get a list of all the articles in a
> newsgroup" and "get me the full contents of a specific article in a newsgroup"
> that the URL syntax they've provided was useful.

Actually the URL spec ( RFC 1738  and prior ) and the more recent generic URI
spec ( RFC 2396 ) have little to do with distinction within a resource as you
described. They, particularly RFC 2396, are intended to allow a general or
uniform, if you will, means of accessing a resource ( file , program, etc ... )

> However, for the application that I'm working on I'm also going to be needing
> to be able to do things like "get me all the 'x' header lines for the
> newsgroup" (xhdr), as well as being able to do just a "head" request to get
> the header information for a specific news article posting (e.g. Lines,
> Subject, From, etc).  This is where I'm not quite sure how it fits together
> right; presuming that a 'HEAD' request can be done (similarly to a 'HEAD'
> request in HTTP), should that result in the value returned being the actual
> header of the message itself?

> I guess my whole wishy-washy-ness on this wasn't as to how the URL actually
> gets turned into something that gets requested from the server, but in that I
> already know something that I want to request from the server and haven't
> quite figured out how (if at all) that maps back cleanly into a kioslave.  Did
> that make any sense? > 

Ohhh okay... I now see what you mean now. I glanced at RFC 977.  What you wanted
to know is how you can send a request/command that cannot be expressed by a URL,
right?  My suggestion is to take a look at the pop3 slaves as the mail client
programs probably have the same requirements ...  I am now also interested in
this and will look into it.  Worst come worst I will learn quite a bit about
IOSlaves and the NNTP protocol.  I guess I just volunteered myself into helping
create an NNTP ioslave ...

Regards,
Dawit A.

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