On Thu 05 Aug 1999, Philip Hazel wrote:
> For a start, I think
> modern MUAs don't actually need *every* line beginning with "From " to
> be quoted - only those that really look like separators, with the date
> and time, etc. So if I can be more cunning with that, very few "From"s
> will actually ever need to be quoted.
While dredging around on the net for more info, I read somewhere that
there are *very* little requirements attached to that "From " line
besides the fact that it must begin with "From ". However, I've looked
at the sources of a couple of things that read the mailbox (mutt, qpopper
and netbsd's mail).
netbsd's mail expects the line to be of the following form:
From <return-path> <weekday> <month> <day> <time> <year>
Here's what mutt's source has as a comment:
* A valid message separator looks like:
*
* From [ <return-path> ] <weekday> <month> <day> <time> [ <timezone> ] <year>
So mutt thinks the From is exactly "From", and name is optional,
but the date / time is not.
This is from qpopper:
/* You are not expected to understand this macro, but read the next page if
* you are not faint of heart.
[ he's right there; check out pop_dropcopy.c at around line 70 if you're
curious ]
*
* Known formats to the VALID macro are:
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 1992
* BSD From user Wed Dec 2 05:53:22 1992
* SysV From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 PST 1992
* rn From user Wed Dec 2 05:53:22 PST 1992
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 -0700 1992
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53:22 -0700 1992
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 1992 PST
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53:22 1992 PST
* From user Wed Dec 2 05:53 1992 -0700
* Solaris From user Wed Dec 2 05:53:22 1992 -0700
*
* Plus all of the above with `` remote from xxx'' after it. Thank you very
* much, smail and Solaris, for making my life considerably more complicated.
/* Valid UUCP From lines:
*
* From Address [tty] date
* From [tty] date
It looks like bsd's mail is the most restrictive (and probably the one
to consider as a guide, as bsd originated this format). I.e. no timezone,
and return-path mandatory.
Paul Slootman
--
Better, faster, | home: paul@??? http://www.wurtel.demon.nl/
cheaper: | debian: paul@??? isdn4linux: paul@???
choose any two. | work: paul@??? Murphy Software, Enschede, NL
