Mailcap behavior not as expected

Mailcap behavior not as expected

[Daniel Pittman]

Hi.

pGnus has a behavior in it's MIME display engine that I consider
somewhat odd, even if it is not technically a bug.

metamail(1) will select the first entry in the mailcap files that
matches the MIME type it is trying to display and attempt to use that to
display the content.

pGnus will try the last entry that matches the MIME type. Now,
mailcap(5) and friends don't actually specify behavior when there are
multiple matching entries in the mailcap files. 

I think that the behavior of metamail(1) is more what I would expect
though, an assumption that is also held by the architects of the Debian
MIME system -- they provide a configuration in /etc/ to allow one
package to be preferred as the viewer for it's MIME types.

This works by putting it's entries earlier in the system mailcap file...

Anyway, WIBNI pGnus also preferred the earlier entries, allowing it to
work like metamail(1) and it's friends?

        Daniel

-- 
No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky.
        -- Llewelyn Powys

Re: Mailcap behavior not as expected

[Per Abrahamsen]

Daniel Pittman <daniel@danann.net> writes:

> Anyway, WIBNI pGnus also preferred the earlier entries, allowing it to
> work like metamail(1) and it's friends?

When the standard is silent, following the "sample" implementation
(metamail) is probably the best.

Re: Mailcap behavior not as expected

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk>:

> Daniel Pittman <daniel@danann.net> writes:
>> Anyway, WIBNI pGnus also preferred the earlier entries, allowing it to
>> work like metamail(1) and it's friends?

> When the standard is silent, following the "sample" implementation
> (metamail) is probably the best.

Agreed.  That sounds like a good rule-of-thumb.

Re: Mailcap behavior not as expected

[Carey Evans]

Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

> When the standard is silent, following the "sample" implementation
> (metamail) is probably the best.

Actually, RFC 1524 *does* specify the behaviour:

}   The configuration information will be obtained
}   from the FIRST matching entry in a mailcap file, where "matching"
}   depends on both a matching content-type specification, an entry
}   containing sufficient information for the purposes of the application
}   doing the searching, and the success of any test in the "test="
}   field, if present.

-- 
	 Carey Evans  http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/c.evans/

	       "This is where your sanity gives in..."

Re: Mailcap behavior not as expected

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Daniel Pittman <daniel@danann.net> writes:

> metamail(1) will select the first entry in the mailcap files that
> matches the MIME type it is trying to display and attempt to use that to
> display the content.

Yup.  Fix in Gnus v5.8.5.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen