Xref: utzoo comp.bugs.4bsd:1134 comp.mail.headers:439 comp.sys.sequent:112 comp.unix.wizards:13438
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.mail.headers,comp.sys.sequent,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: BSD 4.2 Mail not RFC822-compliant?
Keywords: bsd mail rfc822
Message-ID: <700@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 88 00:43:35 GMT
References: <555@unocss.UUCP> <3502@emory.uucp>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Followup-To: comp.bugs.4bsd
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 26

>The problem is that the To: address does not have an "@dom.ain" part.
>For reasons I was not able to pin down, both the To: and the From:
>address need to be either fully domain'ed or non-domain'ed ("fritz")
>but having mixtures produces this problem.

I think part of the problem may be that the 4.2BSD version of Mail got
confused by the "." when it constructed the address for the reply; it
may think that "." is a Berknet addressing character or something.  This
may be fixed in the 4.3BSD version.

>/usr/ucb/Mail very badly needs an overhaul; the AT&T folks basically
>have already done it, and called the result mailx.  It is interesting to
>note that Sun's /usr/ucb/Mail is actually mailx.

I don't know that "mailx" is a complete overhaul; they added a bunch of
stuff, and may have cleaned up some things, but one thing they didn't
touch was the address parsing.  The 4.2BSD "Mail" and S5R2 "mailx" had a
parser that claimed to be an RFC733 parser; the 4.3BSD "Mail" and S5R3
"mailx" picked up an updated parser I did that claims to be an RFC822
parser, although there are still some holes in it.

The generation of "unl:fritz@edu" is, I suspect, due to the problem I
cited above.  However, the SunOS 4.0 "Mail", which is derived from the
S5R2 "mailx" but has a bunch of 4.3BSD "Mail" and other fixes, including
my updated parser, still generates two "fritz@unocss.unl.edu" in the
"To:" line when you do "replyall".