Hi again folks, I received several messages asking how the mailer client knows which message is a reply or not, and what is the diference between clicking on "new message" and "reply".
Here is the explanation, but better way to explain is a good example. :-) When you create a NEW message, it has the following fields in headers: From: ... To: ... Subject: ... Date: ... Message-Id: <123abc...@machine.domain> (123abc...@machine.domain) is a unique random-num...@machine-name generated by your machine automatically. When you REPLY to this previous message it has the following headers: From: ... To: ... Subject: ... Date: ... Message-Id: <7890...@othermachine.domain> In-Reply-To: <123abc...@machine.domain> And when you reply to this second message, it has this headers: From: ... To: ... Subject: ... Date: ... Message-Id: <abc...@yourmachine.domain> In-Reply-To: <7890...@othermachine.domain> References: <123abc...@machine.domain> The next reply will have: From: ... To: ... Subject: ... Date: ... Message-Id: <askjdhs...@somemachine.domain> In-Reply-To: <abc...@yourmachine.domain> References: <7890...@othermachine.domain> <123abc...@machine.domain> The "In-Reply-To" and "References" fields are used to mail-clients identify which message is new, or related to previous messages. A NEW message does not have this fields, however, a reply has. On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 12:07:44PM -0200, Pedro Zorzenon Neto wrote: > Hi folks, > > Please take 3 minutes of your time to read this. > > There are some smart mail readers that are able to organize the > received messages by thread. This means a message and all replies to it > will be joined toghether, then it will be easier for the user to read > related messages and know which message was answered by which. <cut>
