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From: pdb@sei.cmu.edu (Patrick Barron)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Survey on damage by mailers.
Message-ID: <3339@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 22-Nov-87 15:13:20 EST
Article-I.D.: aw.3339
Posted: Sun Nov 22 15:13:20 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Nov-87 06:43:18 EST
References: <408@minya.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu
Reply-To: pdb@sei.cmu.edu (Pat Barron)
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, SEI, Pgh, Pa
Lines: 29

In article <408@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>	2. If the string "\n.\n" occurs, the tail end of the file (starting
>		at the '.') is discarded.

This isn't a bug, it's a feature.  And it can be disabled by putting
"unset dot" in your .mailrc file.

>In addition, I know of mailers that do the following:
>
>	3. High-order bits are turned off (or set to parity).
>	4. Null bytes are dropped.

Assuming that your mailer is RFC 822 compatible, these aren't bugs either.
RFC 822 specifies that mail messages can only contain 7-bit printable ASCII
characters, along with formatting codes like <CR> and <LF>.  If you really
have to mail such a file, you can use uuencode/uudecode, or some other
similar program.

>Can you add to the list?

How about:

   1) Mailers that delete trailing spaces from message lines, occasionally
      messing up uuencode/uudecode and other similar programs.
   2) Mailers that let "From:" addresses like "user@host.UUCP", "host!user",
      or "user@host.BITNET" escape on to the Internet without fixing the
      address (e.g., "user@host.UUCP" becomes "user%host.UUCP@gateway.do.main).

--Pat.