The "true" format of .mailrc

The "true" format of .mailrc

[Jan Vroonhof]

mail-abbrevs.el has this

	end)
    (while start
      ;; If we're reading from the mailrc file, then addresses are delimited
      ;; by spaces, and addresses with embedded spaces must be surrounded by
      ;; single or double-quotes.  Otherwise, addresses are separated by
      ;; commas.
      (if from-mailrc-file
	  (cond ((eq ?\" (aref definition start))
		 (setq start (1+ start)
		       end (string-match "\"[ \t,]*" definition start)))
		((eq ?\' (aref definition start))

However my other MUA (mutt) disagrees. It always wants comments in its 
alias file and generates entries like

alias joe Joe User <joe@pobox.net>

mail-abbrevs.el turns this into three aliases: Joe, User,
<joe@pobox.net>.

Unfortunately mutt also doesn't remove the quotes from

alias joe "Joe User <joe@pobox.net>"

A quick glance at other MUA's show that they _all_ want commas

Jan

Re: The "true" format of .mailrc

[Tibor Simko]

>>>>> "JV" == Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof@math.ethz.ch> writes:

    JV> However my other MUA (mutt) disagrees. [...] A quick glance at
    JV> other MUA's show that they _all_ want commas

Don't believe them, the "true" ~/.mailrc separator is space.  From the
mailx(1) manpage:

  [...] The format for the alias command is a space-separated list of
  recipients, while the format for an alias in either the .forward or
  /etc/aliases is a comma-separated list. [...]

-TS

Re: The "true" format of .mailrc

[Edward J. Sabol]

Excerpts from mail: (23-Aug-99) The "true" format of .mailrc by Jan Vroonhof
> Unfortunately mutt also doesn't remove the quotes from
>
> alias joe "Joe User <joe@pobox.net>"

Another data point for your argument: The standard `mailx' command on my
Silicon Graphics Indigo 2 with Irix 6.5.2 doesn't strip the double quotes
either. It's really quite annoying. I for one would like to see
mail-abbrevs.el changed.

Later,
Ed