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From: karl.kleinpaste@osc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Interesting header/error message
Message-ID: <1991May13.112332.20564@oar.net>
Date: 13 May 91 12:22:48 GMT
References: <1991May13.033329.24202@chinet.chi.il.us>
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les@chinet.chi.il.us writes:
	   From:   Bruce D.Becker <bdb@becker.UUCP>
		   ^      ^-illegal period in phrase
		    \-phrases containing '.' must be quoted
   Is this really an error?  Does anyone else add headers like this? 

See a related thread in comp.mail.sendmail, "Free Standing Periods."
Yes, it's technically invalid; the derivation of the header ends in
"<phrase> <route-addr>" where a <phrase> is a sequence of <words>,
which in turn must be either a <quoted-string> or a sequence of
<atoms>.  <Atoms> may not contain <specials>.  You can derive it in a
minute or three's consideration of the alphabetic grammar listing at
the end of 822.

Rayan's mailer is unquestionably to be awarded Most Picky Mailer Ever
Devised, but it has the good taste to deliver anyhow, in view of the
wide disregard for this particular bit of syntactic pedanticism.

--karl