From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/22212 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Hans de Graaff Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: bad (i.e. serious) mail problems Date: 02 Apr 1999 08:54:53 +0200 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <8790cbzf42.fsf@graaff.xs4all.nl> References: <99Mar30.101000est.13914-3@gateway.intersys.com> <99Mar31.100918est.13949-3@gateway.intersys.com> <99Apr1.170300est.13874-3@gateway.intersys.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035160173 26948 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:29:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:29:33 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA18364 for ; Fri, 2 Apr 1999 02:25:24 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id BAB03564; Fri, 2 Apr 1999 01:24:38 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Fri, 02 Apr 1999 01:24:30 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA25321 for ; Fri, 2 Apr 1999 01:24:18 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from graaff.xs4all.nl (qmailr@graaff.xs4all.nl [194.109.62.76]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA18349 for ; Fri, 2 Apr 1999 02:24:00 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: (qmail 2144 invoked by uid 1000); 2 Apr 1999 06:54:53 -0000 Original-To: ding@gnus.org X-Face: ,i^c$X{l+r}VV%(bl{^[ writes: > * Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE on Thu, 01 Apr 1999 > | What pop3-movemail does amounts to interpreting From_ as the end of > | the message (the beginning of a new one, actually, but you know what I > | mean). > > This is nonsense, as you would see if you looked at the source code. pop3 > sees a message as a message, exactly as the server presents it. pop3 > generates a delimiter at the *beginning* of the message it is currently > dealing with only when no delimiter exists. I agree, and this also makes sense. What I perceive as the issue that people are discussing is that you should in this case also make sure that there are no other From_ lines in the message you are writing out, because those will be interpreted by any mbox-reading application as additional, if erroneous, message delimiters. For example (and I know I'm not getting all the details and formats of the headers right, but that doesn't matter for the argument): Message 1 is received from POP: ---- From: someone Subject: none This is a message that has a line that starts with >>From . And an extra line to boot. ---- The message contains no From_ line at the start, so you add one, and write the complete message to the mbox. Then message 2 comes in. ---- >>From someone at some date From: xyzzy Subject: all Another message ---- This message does contain a From_ line, so you just write the full message to the mbox file. Let's now look at the mbox file: ---- *From* someone at some date From: someone Subject: none This is a message that has a line that starts with *From* . And an extra line to boot. *From* someone at some date From: xyzzy Subject: all Another message ---- Instead of having two message delimiters of the form From_, there are three. This happens because the From_ line in the body of the first message is not escaped when it is written into an mbox style folder. > Now, if you want to argue the choce of an mbox-style delimiter being a bad > one, I would agree -- mbox is lousy. :-) I don't think anybody would want to argue about /that/. Hans