Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!gamiddle
From: gamiddle@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton)
Subject: MIPS /bin/mail wrongly interpreting \n.\n as EOF ??
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 91 18:38:46 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Jan18.183846.16717@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Lines: 24

/bin/mail apparently always stops reading input when it sees "." on a line by
iteslf, and cannot be told to do otherwise.

This agrees with the man page, but I think it is wrong anyway.  It makes it
impossible for a MIPS system to use the SMTP transparency procedure described
in RFC 821, section 4.5.2.

In an SMTP dialogue, EOF is indicated by "<CR><LF>.<CR><LF>".  "." on a line
by itself is sent by using two dots, one of which is discarded by the
receiver: "<CR><LF>..<CR><LF>".

Once the extra dots have been discarded, the message is given (by sendmail)
to /bin/mail for local delivery.  /bin/mail truncates the message.

If, in sendmail.cf, I make the local mailer also use the dot-transparency
algorithm (by using the "X" mailer flag), periods are also doubled on input
to /bin/mail.  Unfortunately, /bin/mail does not strip periods, so mailed
troff input files end up having things like "..pp" in them.

Have I missed something?  Is there some trick I have overlooked to get around
this?

 -Guy Middleton, University of Waterloo		gamiddleton@watmath.waterloo.edu
		(+1 519 885 1211 x3472)		gamiddleton@watmath.uwaterloo.ca