Parsing error, errr LACK of parsing error

[John F Sandhoff]

I've just been bit by some disparate behavior concerning conf file
parsing on V3. Perhaps this has been addressed; if so my apologies.

On V1, a statement that is not defined will generate an error.
On V3, a statement that is not defined is silently ignored.

Example:
host badline {
  bogus_statement;
}

On V1 this conf entry throws an error ("Expecting a parameter or
declaration"). But on V3, this line is fine. Why is it not an error?

In my specific case, consider "hardware ethernet 00:c0:b7;10:20:30;".
Note the wayward semicolon. The ethernet address in this case is parsed
as 00:c0:b7 and accepted (I would think a truncated hardware address
would be an error?), and the inadvertently created statement of 10:20:30
is silently ignored.

Feature, or bug?
If feature, is there a way to alter this behavior (i.e. generate an 
error)?

I suspect this may be an interaction with allowing the 'option' statement
to define new keywords, but I really don't know.

Thanks,
-- John

    John F Sandhoff, University Network Support
      California State University, Sacramento
        sandhoff at csus.edu