Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!shelby!portia!hanauma.stanford.edu!joe
From: joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Replying to mail... is there a general theory?
Message-ID: <3483@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 11 Jul 89 06:34:25 GMT
Sender: USENET News System <news@Portia.stanford.edu>
Reply-To: joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger)
Organization: Stanford University, Dept. of Geophysics
Lines: 37


	I would like to set up a system whereby mailing to a special
address ("anisotropy@hanauma.stanford.edu") automatically sends back
a reply giving some standard information (a list of e-mail addresses
of people working in anisotropy).
	My question is: what's the best way to get a return address
out of a message? It seems that I should use either the address on
the "From" or "From:" lines, but which is correct? Neither works all
the time. Here are some samples:

1)
From ames!uucp@apple.com Fri Jul  7 08:21:53 1989
From: ames!cs.utexas.edu!nluug.nl!ruugeof!douma@apple.com (Jan Douma)

2)
From stan@erebus.STANFORD.EDU Thu Jul  6 01:06:29 1989
From: Stan Ruppert <stan@erebus.STANFORD.EDU>

3)
From killer!jimfig@ames.arc.nasa.gov Tue Jun 20 15:04:51 1989
From: jimfig@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Jim Fiegenschue)


	In #1, the "From:" line would work but the "From" line would not.
	In #2, the "From" line would work but the "From:" line would not,
	unless you knew to look in the <>'s.
	In #3 either would work.

	From looking at other samples collected in my mbox, it seems the
best algorithm would be:

Look at the "From:" line. Does it have a "<...>" field in it? If yes, use
whatever is in the <>'s as the return address; If no, use the first field
after the "From:" as the return address.
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger joe@hanauma.stanford.edu  apple!hanauma!joe\/\.-._