Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!lll-tis!ptsfa!vixie!paul From: paul@vixie.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Bracketing in mail addresses - NO NO NO NO NO Message-ID: <654@vixie.UUCP> Date: Thu, 11-Jun-87 17:06:53 EDT Article-I.D.: vixie.654 Posted: Thu Jun 11 17:06:53 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 09:52:43 EDT References: <16238@amdcad.AMD.COM> <3546@cbosgd.ATT.COM> Reply-To: paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) Organization: Vixie Enterprises, San Francisco Lines: 124 Xref: utgpu comp.mail.misc:288 comp.mail.uucp:543 Summary: This is unneccessary, better solutions already exist Okay, let's do it again.... sigh... In article <756@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi%bsu-cs@iuvax.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes: >This is a good time to recapitulate. I originally posted an article >suggesting that one ought to be able to specify precedence within >a mail address, so [a!b]@c.EDU would be different from a![b@c.EDU] and >neither would be ambiguous. > >Here is a summary of the objections that were raised to my suggestion >and my response. And here are my objections to your responses. >Objection: We would have to add another special character to mail >addresses and there is no point in complicating things. > >Response: [...] All we need to do is allow the nesting of <>. For the various non-recursive finite-state parsers out there, nested <>'s would be a painful thing to support. What I want to point out, though, is that you are suggesting a change to the software of every (or nearly every) node on the internet. At least, those sites that wanted to reply to sites using your new syntax, would have to upgrade their software to understand the new syntax. This is not in itself a bad thing; at this point I only want to point out the scope of the change you are suggesting -- I need it below. >Objection: There is no such thing as a bang address. > >Response: Should we dignify this head-in-sand attitude by responding >to it? I don't think so. This is unprofessional in the extreme. All you do with this kind of a response is to convince the people who have the attitude you are making fun of, that YOU are a jerk and that your ideas are probably worthless. Try to be constructive, okay? Now the fact is that there IS NO SUCH THING as a bang address. Bangs are used in routes, not addresses. At-signs are used in addresses. There is such a thing as a 'route-addr', which uses colons and commas, but I really don't understand much of that (which is too bad, since my sendmail.cf does!) This is a question of terminology. A string consisting of "words" seperated with bangs is CALLED a route. A string with two "words" with an at-sign in between them is CALLED an address. According to the standards adopted by the Internet, "From:" and "To:" lines contain addresses, and addresses are of the form "lhs@rhs", and "rhs" has a syntax making it a domain, and "lhs" can be anything at all. An address (really: a From: or To: line's contents) that does not contain an at-sign is considered a "local" address, subject to whatever meaning the local mailer wants to give it. Usually, it is scanned for bangs and forwarded if appropriate -- but this is a defacto-standard, not an approved one. THIS WORKS. There is no need for precedence operators in a network where every site acts according to the standard. Maybe we need a standard that will transform the defacto handling of bangs in LHS into an approved thing; if this is what you want to to, write an RFC -- the net would canonize you. My point in this part of this article is that there is a standard, and that if all sites adhered to it, it would work well enough to do what you are trying to do with your additional precedence operator(s). Also, I urge you not to brush off this point, or I (and others, no doubt) will think that YOU have YOUR head in the sand. >Objection: There is no problem with precedence because @ always has >the highest precedence, and anything to the left of that is only >interpreted by the site named after the @. > >Response: This is pure chauvinism. Chauvinism = preference of one thing over another for non-objective reasons. There ARE good reasons for doing it this way -- because that's the approved standard, mostly; if you do it this way, you mail will get through, and mail forwarded through your system will get through. This is not chauvinism. >A user of the ! syntax, whose mailer does not understand @ syntax, treats all >addresses as made up of components separated by bangs. Even programs that >understand both types of addresses may arbitrarily choose one over the other. A user of the ! syntax can get SMAIL for free, and join the internet. A program that understands both bangs and at-signs can either do it the way the standards tell us to do it, or do it some other way. If the program adheres to the standard, everybody's mail will get through. Points: internet mail handlers can be had for free (SMAIL). there IS a standard way to handle addresses with both @ and !. >As far as I can tell from the documentation, smail gives precedence to the ! >over the @ when it sees both in the address field of an incoming message. Since SMAIL is advertised as a RFC-compliant mailer, this can't be right. Can a UUCP-Project member comment on this? >I have encountered messages whose address fields were badly mangled because >some sites gave precedence to @ and others gave precedence to !. So have I. And I curse and bitch and moan and send mail to the site admins of the offending systems, and they usually say "oh, sorry, didn't know, let me install smail". Really, that's the usual response. I've been amazed. >Rahul Dhesi UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo}!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi You're done, so let me get to my conclusion. Since SMAIL is free, and since it adheres to the published standards, and since if everyone adhered to the published standards mail would be much more reliable, and since you are suggesting that everyone (even currently compliant sites) change their mail handlers to accept your (unneccessary) additions, it follows that you should instead advocate a wider acceptance of SMAIL: it does what you want done (get mail through faster and more reliably); it already exists (so there is no effort involved in designing and coding what you suggest); it is free (obvious benefits); and anyone already compliant with the published stand- ards doesn't have to do anything (fewer people have to upgrade their mailers). Can we let the precedence-character argument drop, now, and get on with the business of bringing the gospel of SMAIL to the heathens(*) :-) ?? (* = stolen from Cal Thixton's outgoing mail headers) -- Paul A Vixie Esq 329 Noe Street {ptsfa, crash, hoptoad, ucat}!vixie!paul San Francisco ptsfa!vixie!paul@ames.ames.arc.nasa.gov CA 94116 paul@vixie.UUCP (415) 864-7013