🚀 go-pugleaf

In-reply-to: UUCP%"carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU" 's message of 10-NOV-1992
 06:59:46.96
>In article <0096365E.615FEA60.12219@EIMONI.TUWIEN.AC.AT>, "Franz
>>I'm using MX V3.1C, VMS 5.5-1 and i have set a personal name in
>>VMS-mail. When i send a message out it appears as
>>From: "Franz Schoenbauer,Computer Science,Vienna,Austria, +43-1-58801-4126"
>                         ^                ^      ^
>>      <system@EIMONI.TUWIEN.AC.AT>
>
>No.  The commas aren't allowed.  The basic format is fine, but you can't use
>special characters ("(",  ")",  "<",  ">",  "@", ",",  ";",  ":",  "\",  ".",
>"[",  "]", or the quote character (") itself) in your personal name.

Goodness; this seems quite foolish, and I know that I've seen "."'s in
personal names before.  Mine happens to be an example; have I been
able, as a mere mortal, to break other folk's mailers with my personal
name?  Or have I simply taken this problem response too much out of
it's original context?  Parsing quoted strings is a pain, but one
which (I thought) has been long and oft solved in the annals of
computer science.

Do you instead refer to the class of _unquoted_ personal names.  Your
rules on special characters make sense as exemplified by:

 From: My name without special characters <bland@mycorp.com>

versus:

 From: "My name, with special, pleasing characters..." <neat@mycorp.com>

It thus becomes the mailer's duty to decide whether or not a
particular personal name requires quoting, not the poor, befuddled
luser.

Del Merritt     del@IntraNet.com        ccavax!giant!del
IntraNet, Inc., 255 Washington Street, Newton, MA  02158
Voice: 617-527-7020; FAX: 617-527-6779