Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!olivea!uunet!mcsun!ukc!axion!uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk!igb
From: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Is '@' ever needed?
Keywords: '%'
Message-ID: <^=#+&~=@uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk>
Date: 18 Jun 91 15:30:44 GMT
References: <797@minya.UUCP>
Sender: news@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (News with an UZI)
Organization: BT Fulcrum, Birmingham
Lines: 17

In article <797@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
> This may sound silly, but I  recently  realized,  and  testing  on  an
> assortment  of machines has so far verified, that there seems to be no
> reason to ever use '@' in a mail address.   If  you  always  use  '%',
> mailers  that  I've tested all seem to accept it and convert it to '@'
> when necessary.  I'm wondering if this really works everywhere.

Most sendmail config files I've seen have something like this in them:

R$+%$+			$1@$2			convert '%'s to '@'s
R$+@$+@$+		$1%$2@$3		then reduce to only one '@'

Many other mailers do something similar.

It's a feature.

ian