On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Sean Witham wrote:
> Well let the MTA add the current vaild two digits if they are missing
> but make it work with 4 digits, users can use 2 digits if they
> wish and let the MTA add the missing 19 or 20 in the same way that it
> adds the domain name when a local MUA only uses an account name.
Let me explain a bit more. This is all do do with incoming rather than
outgoing messages. The MTA receives a message with a given local part.
It applies a regular expression to this local part. If it matches, it
extracts two strings from the local part. One is the "real" local part
and the other is a string of digits. For example, one might have
10ph970605 being turned into "ph10" and "970605"
The complexity is limited only by your ingenuity with regular
expressions.
The string of digits is not of fixed length. It might just be "9812",
for example. It has to be interpreted as a date and time. I played
around with ideas of trying to second-guess whether the year was the
first 4 or first 2 digits, and came to the conclusion that it wasn't
possible. What year should one assume for 200604? Is it year=2006,
month=04 or year=2020, month=06, day=04? In the end I decided to go for
2-digit years because it would save people having to put in the (mostly
unvaring) century frequently, and also it had some small advantage in
disguising the date a bit more.
However, I'm a software writer, not a dictator. I try to accommodate
users' preferences. If there is general support for using 4-digit rather
than 2-digit years, I'm happy to change. Votes, anybody?
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph10@??? New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@??? England. Phone: +44 1223 334714
