Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!pacbell!dsinc!syd
From: syd@dsinc.DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Problem with messages starting with blanks
Summary: Some Unix Mailers don't follow rules
Message-ID: <142@dsinc.DSI.COM>
Date: 5 Jun 89 02:46:17 GMT
References: <583@Aragorn.dde.dk>
Reply-To: syd@dsinc.UUCP (Syd Weinstein)
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc., Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
Lines: 27

In article <583@Aragorn.dde.dk> tpo@dde.dk (Thomas Peter Sonne Olesen) writes:
>If I recieve a message from my local system written with the standard  
>mail program, and the message start with blanks my mailfile
>(/usr/mail/tpo) will look like this:
>---------------------------------------------
>From xyz Sun Jun  4 00:57 DST 1989
>    A message line starting with blanks
>
>It looks like elm treat the message line as a part of the header.
This is easy to explain.

In RFC822, a header line can be continued by starting  the line
with blanks.  Thus what you have is ambiguous.  It looks like a continued
header line, which Elm assumes it is.  If your default mailer, obviously
a System V type, added the blank line at the end of the headers like it
is supposed to, there would be no problem.  Without that line, indicating
end of headers, we have nothing to go on.

Now Elm is a little smart here, if the line started at the margin,
Elm would say, this is not a valid header line, so It must be the
result of a damaged mailer, I will end the headers here and all works
ok.
-- 
=====================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP                   Elm Coordinator
Datacomp Systems, Inc.				Voice: (215) 947-9900
syd@DSI.COM or {bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd	        FAX:   (215) 938-0235