Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bucsb!jbw@bucsf.bu.edu (Joe Wells)
From: jbw@bucsf.bu.edu
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.bug
Subject: Re: rmail loses invalid mail files
Summary: inews garbage
Message-ID: <15@bucsf.bu.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 89 21:58:54 GMT
References: <89Apr14.144555nst.18486@garfield.mun.edu>
Reply-To: jbw@bucsf.bu.edu (Joe Wells)
Followup-To: gnu.emacs.bug
Distribution: gnu
Organization: Boston Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 27

jeff1@garfield.mun.edu (Jeff Sparkes) writes:
>	If rmail doesn't recognize any messages in a file, it 
>ends up with a file with only a babyl header.  If the file happened to
>be the system mailbox, it is now gone, without even an hint except
>"No new mail has arrived."  Even the ".newmail" file is gone.  This was 
>found out the hard way, when we had a sendmail problem which didn't put 
>"From " at the start of the mailbox.
>	If rmail doesnt recognize the format of the file, it should probably
>leave it be and just issue a warning.

This code in rmail.el is to blame:

	      ;;This is a kludge, in case we're wrong about mmdf not
	      ;;allowing anything in between.  If it loses, we'll have
	      ;;to look for something else
	      (t (delete-char 1)))))

Essentially, if it doesn't recognize any mail message starting
delimiters, it deletes the first character and tries again.  And
again.  And again.  :-)

More fun than allowed by law, don't you think?

--
Joe Wells <jbw@bucsf.bu.edu>
jbw%bucsf.bu.edu@bu-it.bu.edu
...!harvard!bu-cs!bucsf!jbw