🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <778@bimacs.BITNET> yedidya@bimacs.bitnet (Yedidya Israel) writes:

>I am getting a letter say from
>        George Bush bush@tree
>When I am replying with my mailer it sends mail to
>        George
>        Bush
>and     bush@tree
>Is it my mailer's fault or should the person's address be:
>        George Bush <bush@tree>

Your mailer is fine: all three things (George, Bush and bush@tree)
are correct addresses. So if you do want only the last one to be 
taken as an address, the address should be "full name <real address>".

By the way, is George Bush reachable now ?  :-)
A president discussing things via USENET is an example of real democracy!

-- 
-- ######   Jos Vos   ######   Internet   jos@idca.tds.philips.nl   ######
-- ######             ######   UUCP         ...!mcvax!philapd!jos   ######

>>        George Bush bush@tree
>Your mailer is fine: all three things (George, Bush and bush@tree)
>are correct addresses. So if you do want only the last one to be 
>taken as an address, the address should be "full name <real address>".

No. "George Bush bush@tree" is an illegal From: line. Last time I looked,
messages tended to have only *ONE* From: address..

It should be George Bush <bush@tree>.

Even in the context of a To: line, where multiple addresses are fine,
that line is illegal. If it represents three differrent addresses,
the addresses should be seperated by commas.

>No. "George Bush bush@tree" is an illegal From: line. Last time I looked,
>messages tended to have only *ONE* From: address..

Well, last time I looked, which was a few seconds ago:

     August 13, 1982              - 17 -                      RFC #822


 
     Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages


                        ";"    date-time         ; time received

     originator  =   authentic                   ; authenticated addr
                   [ "Reply-To"   ":" 1#address] )

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

...

     4.4.1.  FROM / RESENT-FROM

        This field contains the identity of the person(s)  who  wished
        this  message to be sent.  The message-creation process should
        default this field  to  be  a  single,  authenticated  machine
        address,  indicating  the  AGENT  (person,  system or process)
        entering the message.  If this is not done, the "Sender" field
        MUST  be  present.  If the "From" field IS defaulted this way,
        the "Sender" field is  optional  and  is  redundant  with  the
        "From"  field.   In  all  cases, addresses in the "From" field
        must be machine-usable (addr-specs) and may not contain  named
        lists (groups).

so you *can* have multiple authors in a "From:" line.

However, if the intent is to indicate that the sender was "George Bush",
with the address "bush@tree", it is correct that

>It should be George Bush <bush@tree>.

and, furthermore (as explained in the description of the "n#item"
metasyntax,

>Even in the context of a To: line, where multiple addresses are fine,
>that line is illegal. If it represents three differrent addresses,
>the addresses should be seperated by commas.

so if you really *were* saying the message was from "George", "Bush",
and "bush@tree", the From: line should read

	From: George, Bush, bush@tree

In article <33795@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Bill Wisner <wisner@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>...
>No. "George Bush bush@tree" is an illegal From: line. Last time I looked,
>messages tended to have only *ONE* From: address..

RFC822 is quite clear on this. Take the example on pages 7 and 8:

        So, for example, the folded body of an address field
            ":sysmail"@  Some-Group. Some-Org,
            Muhammed.(I am  the greatest) Ali @(the)Vegas.WBA
        is analyzed into the following lexical symbols and types:
                    :sysmail              quoted string
                    @                     special
                    Some-Group            atom
                    .                     special
                    Some-Org              atom
                    ,                     special
                    Muhammed              atom
                    .                     special
                    (I am  the greatest)  comment
                    Ali                   atom
                    @                     atom
                    (the)                 comment
                    Vegas                 atom
                    .                     special
                    WBA                   atom
        The canonical representations for the data in these  addresses
        are the following strings:
                        ":sysmail"@Some-Group.Some-Org
        and
                            Muhammed.Ali@Vegas.WBA
        Note:  For purposes of display, and when passing  such  struc-
               tured information to other systems, such as mail proto-
               col  services,  there  must  be  NO  linear-white-space
               between  <word>s  that are separated by period (".") or
               at-sign ("@") and exactly one SPACE between  all  other
               <word>s.  Also, headers should be in a folded form.

This indicates that the cited address "George Bush bush@tree" is valid. The
interpretation according to RFC822 might not be the intended one, but that's
a different topic. The mailer creating these addresses should be checked and
corrected. It is most likely something like
	Dq$?x$x $.$g
instead of
	Dq$?x$x $.<$g>
in its sendmail.cf (incorrect definition of total addresses).

-- 
Juergen Wagner		   			gandalf@csli.stanford.edu
						 wagner@arisia.xerox.com

In article <7430@csli.STANFORD.EDU> gandalf@csli.UUCP (Juergen Wagner) writes:
>
> This indicates that the cited address "George Bush bush@tree" is valid. The
> interpretation according to RFC822 might not be the intended one, but that's
> a different topic. The mailer creating these addresses should be checked and
> corrected. It is most likely something like
>       Dq$?x$x $.$g
> instead of
>       Dq$?x$x $.<$g>
> in its sendmail.cf (incorrect definition of total addresses).

As the machine of the original poster (BIMACS) is a Bitnet Unix site (as
is this machine), I conjecture that the origin of the incorrect (albeit
officially valid) address is the infamous VM NOTE command which is notorious
for producing precisely this type of 'From:' line.

Other Bitnet Unix sites should note that this address problem only arose after
UREP (Unix RSCS Emulation Package) 3.x, as NOTE usually arrives (unless the
VM user is wide awake and sends the message with special parameters) in
NETDATA format. In previous UREP [12].x versions, NETDATA arrived as garbled
control characters including the header, so sendmail used the Bitnet Tag
to produce its own 'From:' line which was correct (though the actual message
was unreadable and usually put my terminal in APL mode). Now (UREP 3.x), the
message with its incorrect 'From:' line arrives intact.

Solution: Enlightened VM users should use MAIL not NOTE.  Not only does MAIL
          produce correct headers and is in a legible format, but MAIL can
          send to all Bitnet-recognised domains while NOTE is only between
          RSCS (Remote Spooling Control Subsystem) Bitnet sites.

Ephraim