Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cs.dal.ca!silvert
From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: bad address problem
Summary: ELM knows!
Message-ID: <3285@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 30 May 89 14:53:50 GMT
References: <3283@cs.dal.ca> <5426@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Reply-To: bill@biomel.UUCP
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
Lines: 33

In article <5426@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) writes:
>In article <3283@cs.dal.ca> silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert) writes:
>+A common problem for our machine is that ELM extracts incorrect
>+return addresses.
>A misunderstanding here. It is your MTA, not ELM, which has rejected the
>address and dumpted the message into dead.letter. ELM is limited by its
>configuration as to its ability to second guess what addresses your MTA
>will reject.

Although this may be technically true, ELM can tell that the addresses
will be rejected.  If I remember to edit the headers before sending, I
always get an ELM message that the address cannot be expanded, so ELM is
looking at the address before displaying it at the To: line.  All I am
asking is that ELM carry out the same check even if I do not invoke the
headers menu -- it would take a fraction of a second, but rejected
addresses take longer than that to sort out.

I realize that ELM cannot guarantee that the addresses are correct, but
if it has the ability to recognize a bad address I would like it to do
so automatically, rather than being asked to by invoking the headers
menu.

By the way, is there any possibility that a modest editing capability
could be built into the headers menu, perhaps in ELM 2.3?  I could
correct many of the incorrect reply addresses by just inserting six
bytes at the beginning of the address, but as it is I now have to
completely rekey the full address.

-- 
Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division.
Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2
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