"John Williamson" wrote in message ...

Paul D Smith wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...

On 30/01/2013 12:51, Paul D Smith wrote:

nothing!

(if you post under someone else's signature line, most news software
will trim off your post completely when replying)

That's quite amusing. I wonder how they figure out what a signature line
is? As someone who writes software for a living I'm always amused to see
new ways for software authors have helpfully shot themselves in the foot.
As far as I am aware (and "News" is not my field so I'm ready to be
additionally educated) a News item is simply text, with no implied
interpretation of any part of the item.

A standards compliant newsreader looks for a line in the body of the
post which contains only "-- (line feed)" (ASCII codes
&#x2D,&#x2D,&#x20,&#0A, if I've read the table correctly. ). It then
assumes that any lines after this are a signature. It will then,
according to user preference or possibly as hard coded, either strip
these lines from the reply when composing, or ignore it.

John, can you indicate the RFC? I've not managed to find an RFC which
interprets the body in any way.

Thanks,
Paul DS.