Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: taylor@hplabs.HP.COM (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: elm 1.7b address parsing problem
Message-ID: <1578@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Feb 88 20:11:26 GMT
References: <100@mtunk.ATT.COM>
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Distribution: na
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 40

D.B.Wood lists a mailbox file that the Elm system is unable to distinguish
as two messages;

	From To:f.ubar Tue Feb 16 09:45:51 1988
	Subject: Bazzazz

	Bzzzzzz...

-->	From dbw
	>From:       d.b.wood
	Subject:    AIM versions

	Nothing.

The key here is that the current Unix mail systems are defined to look
for lines that begin with the explicit string "From ".  Elm takes a bit
more elegant approach, however, and actually verifies that it's a From-space
line (as it is called) by counting the number of words, and verifying that
the last or second-to-last word has a colon in it (e.g. a time value).  I
do this because I wanted to avoid what is a not uncommon problem with
other mail systems -- false hits in mailboxes.

A fine way to generate one of those is to send a message that has a line
From that starts like this one -- with a "From " on it.  Many mail systems
along the way will report this section as part of a second message, but
Elm realizes it isn't.  

(of course, it's this same problem that causes sendmail to prefix the
annoying '>' to any line that starts with "From " -- but Elm doesn't need
it to be there).

Anyway what you need to do is to have your message separator From-space
lines include the date and time information additionally.

					-- Dave Taylor

ps: you are indeed correct that the From-space line isn't part of Dave
    Crockers' RFC-822 specification, but we must live with it regardless
    because there *is no* specified message separator, alas...just the
    de facto one of "From ".