Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!stealth
From: stealth@caen.engin.umich.edu (Mike Pelletier)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: HELP ME OUT....
Message-ID: <1990Oct28.210632.26119@engin.umich.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 90 21:06:32 GMT
References: <1990Oct27.010347.13485@watcsc.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@engin.umich.edu (CAEN Netnews)
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Lines: 40

In article <1990Oct27.010347.13485@watcsc.waterloo.edu> tcchao@watcsc.waterloo.edu (T C Chao) writes:
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>Could someone out there help me out with this simple question?
>
>Q: When you send email to someone else, you often have to type
>   "@" or "!" or "%" key between the dosite names, domain names...
>   Would somebody give me a full description of "@", "!" & "%"
>   and give me some useful examples.

	@ - stands for "at" such as "user@host.domain".

	! - addresses including these are usually called "bang-paths,"
	    "bang," since the exclamation point is typically prounouced "bang,"
	    and the "path" part comes from the fact that such addresses
	    specify an explicit route for the message to take from
	    machine to machine to reach its destination.  Thus,
	    "uunet!mailrus!umich!caen!b-tech!m-net!stealth" would
	    hand a message from machine "uunet" to "mailrus", and from there
	    down the path until it gets to "m-net!stealth" -- my mailbox
	    on M-net.

	% - sort of a reverse bang, in a way...  The address in the
	    previous example could be rewritten as
	    "stealth%m-net%b-tech%caen%umich%mailrus@uunet.uu.net".
	    When the message reaches uunet, the "@uunet.uu.net" would
	    be removed and the @ sign would be moved to the leftmost
	    % sign, the resulting address processed, and the message
	    sent along.  The same thing would happen at each stage,
	    until b-tech has a message to "stealth@m-net", which it
	    could then deliver to M-net, and thus it would end up in
	    my mailbox there.

Hope that helps...
--
	Mike Pelletier - Usenet News Admin & Programmer
"Wind, waves, etc. are breakdowns in the face of the commitment to getting
 from here to there.  But they are the conditions for sailing -- not
 something to be gotten rid of, but something to be danced with."