Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!rayan Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip From: rayan@cs.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) Subject: Re: New Host-Requirement RFCs Message-ID: <89Oct27.235825edt.2687@neat.cs.toronto.edu> References: <1989Oct27.212939.11277@agate.berkeley.edu> Date: 28 Oct 89 03:59:31 GMT >Can someone provide me with a real world case where the % hack is _needed_? I don't think so, mostly due to your definition of 'needed'. A%B@C can always be expressed as A@B.C or A.B@C or similar (although it isn't in general possible to translate in the other direction due to strange rfc822 tokens). I doubt people would challenge the technical feasibility of doing that. The problem is when *YOU* don't control the mailer on C but you still have to get to a host B that you know C knows because it is a local name, nickname, secret host, in the backwaters of the campus, or whatever. It isn't reasonable to demand that every mail system is prim and proper and will accept DNS names for all hosts it knows about, or translate a DNS name to whatever magic needed on the remote host based on the hostname (as opposed to the syntax used to address that host). One has to deal with reality. Alas. rayan