🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <oU9vpky00VsLQCE5fm@andrew.cmu.edu>, cfe#@andrew.cmu.edu (Craig F. Everhart) writes:
> Neither
> 	@host1:@host2:user@host3
> nor
> 	@host1,@host2:user@host3
> is correct.  The correct form is
> 	<@host1,@host2:user@host3>
>
> But then again, we can ask why you're looking for ways to bend
> standards?  Why not generate the correct form?

Because too much existing software barfs on it.  I've run into this
problem here.  I redid our sendmail configuration so that it generates
RFC-style routes (I won't call them compliant because they contain
internal pseudo-domains).  However, when the route gets long enough to
contain a comma, there are problems.

Problem 1 is that, as you point out, there must be <>s around it.  So
we add <>s.  But someone, somewhere, insists on adding another set,
resulting in an address like

<<@foo,@bar:user@baz>>

which is rather distasteful, even though I have managed to make the
software accept it (does such a mess Conform to the Standard?).  This
way we don't get things like

From: @bar:user@baz, @foo

out of sendmail.  But wait, there's a worse problem: /usr/ucb/Mail
takes the above <<@a,@b:c@d>> and strips off both angle brackets and
then insists on treating the comma as a separator, resulting in
(again!) two separate addresses.

I'm about ready to go to percent signs, which at least work.  I don't
like to though, the Conforming addresses should work (and I shouldn't
have those stupid double <<>>!!).

Does anybody have any suggestions for a way out of this mess?

					der Mouse

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