John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > Gus Wirth wrote: >> I recently discovered that Google mail accounts (gmail) allows a unique >> form of e-mail address. It turns out you can use your e-mail name and >> add a plus sign (+) and some other word to form a valid e-mail address. >> For example, if I had an account at gmail with my user name of >> not-my-real-address, I could do something like this: > > That has been a part of sendmail for years. > Postfix supports +. > qmail (by default) uses -. > > I had noticed that about qmail a long time ago, but it was a halfsies > kind of thing. I tested offsite to gmail, and gmail to gmail, and only > one worked. I submitted a feature request / trouble call about it, and > theyy fixed it: they removed the user+ext functionality altogether. > > If it is back, I would not rely upon it always working. > > What does work, and should always work, is that all .'s inside the user > portion are ignored. u..ser, us.er, and u.s.e.r. are all the same, but > you should be able to filter on them (untested). >
So, do I understand correctly: that the formally valid rfc822 addresses (such as examples above containing a '+' or '-' separator or any number of embedded '.'s) are handled /by convention/ by mail transport and delivery agents in their own _special way_? (Where /special way/ means ignoring suffices or embedded dots) That sounds strange -- unless there is some spec or informal but defacto standard common agreement, how can one know what is /supposed/ to happen? Or in other words, you only know what will happen by testing individual pair combinations. And then I guess unwanted application /favors/ is yet another part of the story. If I misinterpreted, please help. >.. Regards, ..jim -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
