The Date line (formerly Posted) is the date that the message was originally posted to the network. Its format must be acceptable both in RFC-822 and to the getdate(3) routine that is provided with the Usenet software. This date remains unchanged as the message is propagated throughout the network. One format that is acceptable to both is:

Wdy, DD Mon YY HH:MM:SS TIMEZONE

Several examples of valid dates appear in the sample message above. Note in particular that ctime(3) format:

Wdy Mon DD HH:MM:SS YYYY

is not acceptable because it is not a valid RFC-822 date. However, since older software still generates this format, news implementations are encouraged to accept this format and translate it into an acceptable format.

There is no hope of having a complete list of timezones. Universal Time (GMT), the North American timezones (PST, PDT, MST, MDT, CST, CDT, EST, EDT) and the +/-hhmm offset specifed in RFC-822 should be supported. It is recommended that times in message headers be transmitted in GMT and displayed in the local time zone.

RFC1036: [Source:"RFC-1036"] [Last Changed:December 1987] [Copyright: 1987 M. Horton, R. Adams]
RFC-1036:[Previous][Up to Table of Contents] [Next]

(Corrections, notes, and links for Usenet RKT.)
by Mib Software, INN customization and consulting

For POSTing, modern newsreaders require only "From" "Subject" and "Newsgroups" and will generate the remaining lines. See the note: NNTP-Ext 4.2 The Required Headers in an Article and the POST command

-B-r-o-a-d-e-n- your knowledge

Up to RFC1036 2.1. Required Header lines