[gopher] Re: How to handle lines beginning by a dot?

[Matjaž Mešnjak <matjaz85@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
clients will terminate the connection when they find <cr><lf>.<cr><lf> (at
least WSGopher and my Gopher Client). The line ".Blah!" can be sent without
modifications.
If the text file contains "<cr><lf>.<cr><lf>" mail client would transform it
to "<cr><lf>..<cr><lf>", but that's not the case with gopher. For text files
you could modify it to "<cr><lf>.<space><cr><lf>" - that doesn't change the
content but it makes sure the connection isn't terminated. The problem could
be with binary files that contain "<cr><lf>.<cr><lf>" - but the clients that
I tried, downloaded the binary file correctly when it was sent as raw data -
without "<cr><lf>.<cr><lf>" on the end.

Regards,
Matjaz



2009/1/28 Mateusz Viste <mateusz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

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> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi everybody!
>
> The Gopher RFC (1436) contains the following note:
>
> "Lines beginning with periods must be prepended with an extra period to
> ensure that the transmission is not terminated early. The client should
> strip extra periods at the beginning of the line."
>
> I do not understand what does it exactly mean...
> If I serve a text file which has a line like ".Blah!", how should I process
> it? I understand that the problem could occur if the client is silly enough
> to close the connection when it finds a dot character after a CR/LF...
>
> Another question - How should I handle text files which contain a line with
> only a dot (".")?
>
> Any suggestions/hints will be appreciated ;-)
>
> Best regards,
> Mateusz Viste
> - --
> You'll find my public OpenPGP key at gopher://
> gopher.viste-family.net/1/PGP
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