Re: [exim] error with exim conf - Unicode UTF-8 with BOM

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Author: Phil Pennock
Date:  
To: Brian Blood
CC: exim users
Subject: Re: [exim] error with exim conf - Unicode UTF-8 with BOM
On 2011-02-12 at 21:01 -0600, Brian Blood wrote:
> FYI, exim 4.74 chokes when there is a Byte Order Marker at the beginning of the exim conf file.


I think it's fair to say that Exim uses an ASCII encoding. Unless and
until we move to full unicode support in the config file, it would be
premature to accept a BOM.

In fact, since you see an 0xFEFF sequence at the start, the BOM has done
part of what it's supposed to do: let an ASCII system reject the config
file early and clearly, instead of having to deal with every other octet
being a NUL.

If you'd like, you could file a feature request at bugs.exim.org,
requesting Unicode support for reading the config file. I suspect that
we'll opt to mandate UTF-8, so the BOM (if present) would need to be
0xEFBBBF anyway.

-Phil