Bug#568230: bugs.debian.org: "forwarded" tags should gracefully ignore line breaks

2022-09-19 Thread Don Armstrong
On Mon, 19 Sep 2022, fab...@greffrath.com wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 11:09:22 -0800 Don Armstrong wrote:
> > > On Wed, 03 Feb 2010, Fabian Greffrath wrote:
> > > The reason is that my mail client breaks lines if they are longer
> > > than 70 characters.
> > 
> > If your mail client is unable to send messages with long lines, your
> > mail client is fundamentally broken.
> > 
> > If you don't want to fix your MUA, use the bts command line tools
> > instead.
> 
> Could this sentiment probably get reconsidered?

The problem is that there is no easy way for the bug tracking system to
reliably know whether the next line is part of the previous line or a
new line.

For example if you wanted to retitle a bug like so:

retitle 1234 this bug demonstrates broken forwarded data: forwarded 1235 
https://foo

should that look like this:

retitle 1234 this bug demonstrates broken forwarded data:
forwarded 1235 https://foo

We probably could support a line continuation escape (like \), but that
would require a bit of a change management process to enable.

Eventually we'll get around to supporting modifying things using a UI to
generate mail, which will fix this problem. [Maybe in another 10 years
at this rate?]

-- 
Don Armstrong  https://www.donarmstrong.com

But if, after all, we are on the wrong track, what then? Only
disappointed human hopes, nothing more. And even if we perish, what
will it matter in the endless cycles of eternity?
 -- Fridtjof Nansen _Farthest North_ p152



Bug#568230: bugs.debian.org: "forwarded" tags should gracefully ignore line breaks

2022-09-19 Thread fabian


On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 11:09:22 -0800 Don Armstrong wrote:

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010, Fabian Greffrath wrote:

> The reason is that my mail client breaks lines if they are longer
> than 70 characters.

If your mail client is unable to send messages with long lines, your
mail client is fundamentally broken.

If you don't want to fix your MUA, use the bts command line tools
instead.


Could this sentiment probably get reconsidered?

I filed this bug more than 12 years ago, and just today I got bitten by 
this again when I sent a mail to the Debian BTS containing a "forwarded" 
control command. I have sent this from a Windows PC using the roundcube 
webmail client, which apparently also insists to add line breaks to keep 
a certain line length in text-only mails. So, this time I had no chance 
to use the "bts" command lne tool, and I find it anachronistic to refer 
people to use such tools in times when e-mails are sent via webmailers 
or mobile phones.


Thanks,

 - Fabian

Bug#568230: bugs.debian.org: forwarded tags should gracefully ignore line breaks

2010-02-03 Thread Fabian Greffrath
Package: bugs.debian.org
Severity: normal

Dear BTS team,

when I have forwarded a bug report to an upstream bug tracker, mailing list or 
forum and I want to document this in the Debian BTS with the forward tag, I 
often get replies like Processed with 3 errors back from the BTS. The reason 
is that my mail client breaks lines if they are longer than 70 characters. 
Well, the string forwarded 123456  alone is 17 characters long and URLs 
pointing to forums, mailing lists or bug trackers are often long enough to case 
my mail client to break lines then. The BTS-control then receives a mail with 
an incomplete forwarded comand in the first line, an unkown command (i.e. the 
URL) in the second line and thus throws errors here. I suggest that if the 
forwarded command is incomplete on its line and the next line does not 
contain another valid command, than the next line should be concatenated to the 
line containing the forwarded command. Maybe this should also be applied to 
other commends which may accept longer strings as parameters.

 - Fabian

PS: You could of course tell me to fix my mail client, but I find it very 
convenient to have automatic line breaks in mails (it improves the readability 
a lot) and it never causes problems, except for this special case of Debian 
BTS-control handling. ;)


-- System Information:
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Bug#568230: bugs.debian.org: forwarded tags should gracefully ignore line breaks

2010-02-03 Thread Don Armstrong
severity 568230 wishlist
tag 568230 wontfix
reassign 568230 debbugs
thanks

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010, Fabian Greffrath wrote:
 The reason is that my mail client breaks lines if they are longer
 than 70 characters.

If your mail client is unable to send messages with long lines, your
mail client is fundamentally broken.

If you don't want to fix your MUA, use the bts command line tools
instead.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Our days are precious, but we gladly see them going
If in their place we find a thing more precious growing
A rare, exotic plant, our gardener's heart delighting
A child whom we are teaching, a booklet we are writing
 -- Frederick Rükert _Wisdom of the Brahmans_ 
 [Hermann Hesse _Glass Bead Game_]

http://www.donarmstrong.com  http://rzlab.ucr.edu



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