Re: Modifying the sender line

Re: Modifying the sender line

[Simon Josefsson]

Boris Schaefer <sbo@psy.med.uni-muenchen.de> writes:

> The description of the Sender header in RFC822 is a bit ambiguos I
> think.  It doesn't exactly state, whether the Sender has to be a VALID
> mailbox, that can be used to send mail to, or if it just has to
> clearly identify the actual sender.

The syntax specifications in rfc822 are quite clear on this matter.

     authentic   =   "From"       ":"   mailbox  ; Single author
                 / ( "Sender"     ":"   mailbox  ; Actual submittor
                     "From"       ":" 1#mailbox) ; Multiple authors
                                                 ;  or not sender

Gnus (message.el) should write user-mail-address (or when it is not
defined, the heuristically generated From-value) in the Sender-field
iff the From-line differ from that value, and not add a Sender-line at
all otherwise.

The patch below might not be the cleanest one, but seem to work after
some testing (wrt message-generate-headers and
message-supercedes). Any suggestions welcome.

To support the secretary model of sending other peoples mail as
described in RFC822, message.el could use a variable mail-from-address
that only changes the From-line and not affect a Sender-line.

This would also stop the confusion between user-mail-address (address
of Gnus user, aka Sender-line) and the address of a message author
(From-line, for now one has to either manually insert a From-line or
write some elisp to do it).

This (the mail-from-address variable) would also be very useful for
people who sends mail with different addresses.

/S

--- ChangeLog-  Sun May 31 12:53:41 1998
+++ ChangeLog   Sun May 31 12:54:38 1998
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+1998-05-31  Simon Josefsson  <jas@pdc.kth.se>
+
+       * message.el: abolish message-make-sender (use message-make-address)
+
 Fri May  1 21:59:35 1998  Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@menja.ifi.uio.no>
 
        * gnus.el: Gnus v5.6.9 is released.
--- message.el- Tue May 19 16:22:43 1998
+++ message.el  Sun May 31 12:59:15 1998
@@ -2922,12 +2922,6 @@
        (insert ")")))
       (buffer-string))))
 
-(defun message-make-sender ()
-  "Return the \"real\" user address.
-This function tries to ignore all user modifications, and
-give as trustworthy answer as possible."
-  (concat (user-login-name) "@" (system-name)))
-
 (defun message-make-address ()
   "Make the address of the user."
   (or (message-user-mail-address)
@@ -3076,7 +3070,7 @@
       ;; Insert new Sender if the From is strange.
       (let ((from (message-fetch-field "from"))
            (sender (message-fetch-field "sender"))
-           (secure-sender (message-make-sender)))
+           (secure-sender (message-make-address)))
        (when (and from
                   (not (message-check-element 'sender))
                   (not (string=
@@ -3645,7 +3639,7 @@
             (downcase (or (message-fetch-field "sender")
                           (cadr (mail-extract-address-components
                                  (message-fetch-field "from")))))
-            (downcase (message-make-sender)))
+            (downcase (message-make-address)))
       (error "This article is not yours"))
     ;; Get a normal message buffer.
     (message-pop-to-buffer (message-buffer-name "supersede"))