Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!pacbell!sactoh0!unify!jwc
From: jwc@unify.UUCP (J. William Claypool)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: use of % (was: Making smail2.5 understand <user>%<site>@<site>)
Keywords: patches, smail2.5, %@
Message-ID: <1184@unify.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 89 16:59:40 GMT
References: <1989Oct5.053531.24832@egsner.cirr.com> <9672@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <586@trwrc.RC.TRW.COM> <Oct.9.13.58.43.1989.23064@NET.BIO.NET> <126099@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1175@unify.UUCP> <126303@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: jwc@unify.UUCP (J. William Claypool)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 34

In article <126303@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv@sun.UUCP (Dan Heller) writes:
>[ I summarize at the end of this letter ]
>
>> From: jwc@unify.UUCP (J. William Claypool)
>> In article <126099@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv@sun.UUCP (Dan Heller) writes:
>> >Awww, come on... don't leave 'em hanging.  You should at least summarize..
>> >% has lower precedence than @, but is evaluated left to right like @.
>> >It's precedence is equal to !.
>>                     ^^^^^
>> Seems to me that % should have LOWER precedence than !. 
>...
>> How about:
>>     addr2!user%addr1
>> shouldn't this be routed the same?
>Yes, this is routed the same, but we're now speaking hypothetically
>because no "working" mailer would put a %-sign an address without it
>having an @-sign in it.  (see notes about non-working mailers below).

It seems to me that '%' should be completely ignored until there are no
other address operators in the route.  Obviously, the _address_
<user%host@some.domain> rather than the _route_ should appear in the
mail header.

This is exactly what Smail 2.5 does with <user%host@some.domain>.  The
'%' is ignored (as it should be according to rfc822) and the UUCP route
generated is something like 'host1!host2!...!some.domain!user%host'.
It has been my experience that most hosts that understand
'do.main!local-part' (as any UUCP gateway should) also handle '%' in
the local part as Smail 2.5 seems to expect.
-- 

Bill Claypool    W. (916) 920-9092 |I know what I know if you know what I mean
jwc@unify.UUCP   H. (916) 381-4205 |------------------------------------------
    ...!{csusac,pyramid}!unify!jwc |  SCCA SFR Solo II   74 es  1984 CRX 1.5