Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: binmail vs MMDF mail file format
Message-ID: <8887@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 7 Jul 89 05:28:16 GMT
References: <113918@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 25

In article <113918@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> island!argv@sun.com (Dan Heller) writes:

>Mush, unlike mail, will let From_ lines go and not assume a new message
>unless the From_ line meets the above criteria.  While it's true that you
>won't see 4 ^A's in a row, chances are also likely that you won't see the
>above format -unless- you are mailing a folder.  In both cases, (^A's and
>From_), you must prefix the string with something ('>' for example) to
>delineate it from being another message.

AT&T's PMX mailer products include a new /bin/mail that uses
Content-Type: and Content-Length: headers to avoid the problem.  Anything
within the Content-Length: characters is the body of the message and
is not parsed for addition header information.  There are several
advantages to this scheme.  If Content-Type: is Multipart, then there
are additional Content-Type:, Content-Length: headers inside of the
first Content-Length: characters, allowing multiple attachments to a
single message.  The Content-Type: field may be used to do format
transformations as required by the receiving system or to note that
the attachment is 8-bit-binary which should not be sent unless the
receiving system is known to handle binary files.  The ability to
attach any type of file to a message with encoding done transparently
if necessary is extremely important in office automation environments.
Any chance of seeing this (or Forms mode) in Mush?

Les Mikesell