Xref: utzoo comp.unix.ultrix:2750 comp.sys.dec:2631 comp.lang.postscript:4081
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!bloom-beacon!snorkelwacker!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!udel!rochester!ken
From: ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Problems with forwarding PostScript files
Message-ID: <1990Feb9.032818.26972@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 9 Feb 90 03:28:18 GMT
References: <807@granite.dec.com> <2646@bacchus.dec.com> <1815@wheaton.UUCP>
Reply-To: ken@cs.rochester.edu
Followup-To: comp.unix.ultrix
Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department
Lines: 21
Address: Rochester, NY 14627, (716) 275-1448

|>> forwarding mechanism adds a "dash space" to any dashes it finds in the first 
|>> column.
|>I think this is only a problem when you use the MH forw program to
|>forward your mail.  The workaround is to use a different forwarding
|>mechanism or to configure your MH to do something different with lines
|>starting with -.

As several people have pointed out, the dash stuffing is due to the MH
forw program. This stuffing mechanism is santioned in an RFC.  It can
be undone with the burst program, also part of MH.

The real moral is this: one should not rely on mail programs to
transfer *program* source verbatim. Mail programs are allowed to make
transformations that would not damage the meaning of the message when
read by humans.  One could imagine that there might conceivably be a PS
program would be wrecked by Berk mail's indenting by one tab.  Or a PS
program that might contain a line with a period and nothing else which
gets some mailers all upset.  One should wrap the PS source with shar
or something of that genre, or even uuencode the source if it has
problem characters or if it will go through gateways that have line
length limits.