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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!oberon!blarson
From: blarson@oberon.UUCP (Bob Larson)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Lines starting with period.
Message-ID: <176@oberon.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Dec-85 02:19:30 EST
Article-I.D.: oberon.176
Posted: Tue Dec 24 02:19:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 23:19:42 EST
Reply-To: blarson@oberon.UUCP (Bob Larson)
Organization: U. of So. Calif., Los Angeles
Lines: 20

Why can't unix mailers handle lines staring with periods?
(or is it only lines containing a single period and nothing else?)
The way it is rejected varies -- some systems truncate the message
and then return it for misterious reasons (until you figure out the
problem) and others truncate the message and send it on without complaint.
There may even be some that handle it properly, but after a few bounces
your message probably loses anyway.

Is something being done about this as mail handling systems get rewriten?
(The SMTP specifaction includes documentation on how arpanet aviods this
problem.)

-- 
Bob Larson
Arpa: Blarson@Usc-Ecl.Arpa
Uucp: ihnp4!sdcrdcf!oberon!blarson
__________________________________
Unix: An operating system similar to Os-9, but with less functionality
and special features designed to soak up excess memory, disk space and
CPU time on large, expencive computers.
-- Os-9/68000 operating system users manual