On Sun, 20 Jan 2002 07:37:45 -0500 (EST) Thomas Miller wrote: > Internet protocols and formats are native to Unix, which is closely > intermarried > with C (programming language). Backslash character is used to prevent > the > following character from being interpreted in the normal way. Within > a string? delimited by quotation marks, \" is used to indicate an actual quote > character. > Two backslashes are used to indicate one backslash. That's why > backslashes > occasionally appear in message header lines such as
> From: "Samuel\"my_nickname\"Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Removing the backslashes would mean having quotes within a quoted > string, > messing up the syntax. Software I use would not send a message with a > header line like > From: "Samuel (my_nickname) Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > but it might work if each parenthesis is preceded with a backslash; I > haven't > tried. Once I received a message with a line like the one above, > couldn't send > with a line created by simply changing From: to To: , I had to remove > the > parentheses, didn't try the backslash trick. > I didn't check the RFC on this matter. > I sent this a few days ago, but it apparently vanished in the cyber > ether when the Arachne list went down. You have described here how the backslash character is used in C source code. When you are using your email client program to compose an email message you aren't working with C source code. You are working with a compiled program. The compiled program is supposed to work as it should regardless of whatever programming language was used for producing the source code. The particular source code used will affect the size of the compiled executable produced. Also it will affect the speed at which the program runs; however, the program ought to work as it should regardless. Sam Heywood -- This message sent by BasicLinux
