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From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: mail.uk-sendmail-workers,comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Mangled header problem with sendmail.5.61.IDA
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.205539.11879@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 24 Apr 91 20:55:39 GMT
References: <9104241220.AA01017@gruffle.comlab.prg.ox.ac.uk>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 55

In article <9104241220.AA01017@gruffle.comlab.prg.ox.ac.uk> Malcolm.Harper@prg.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>We're running 5.61++ IDA sendmail ($Header: READ_ME_UK,v 1.5 89/08/18 12:30:15)
>and have encountered a problem with header rewriting, especially of "From:"
>and "Reply-To:" lines.
>
>There seems to be no problem with lines of the form
>        From: Malcolm.Harper@uk.ac.oxford.prg (Malcolm Harper (Postmaster))
>but lines of the form
>        From: Malcolm.Harper@uk.ac.oxford.prg (Malcolm Harper \(Postmaster\))
>get mangled into
>        From: Malcolm.Harper@prg(.oxford.ac.uk (Malcolm Harper \(Postmaster\))
>and then fail with "Unbalanced '('".

  This seems to be a combination of a bug in the sendmail sources from
Berkeley, and a possible bug in the 'sendmail.cf' you are using.

  I am compiling a possible fix to the source bug right now.  I will post
if it works out.

  Here is what I am seeing:

The function prescan() is supposed to convert

   address (comment)

into just

   address

However it seems to convert

   address (comment \x )

into

   address\x (comment \x )

 In other words, backslash escaped characters inside the comments are
mishandled.

 That puts your address into the form:

Malcolm.Harper@uk.ac.oxford.prg \(\)

 and somehow the address rewriting rules seem to be dropping the \) from
this.  I don't have any such rewrite problem here, but then I don't have
to reverse addresses the way you folks do.  Probably the rewrite rules are
being fooled by two consecutive tokens which are not separated by a '.'
during the domain reversal algorithm.  (Which may mean that this is nothing
to worry about once the source code fix is in place).
-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940