Howard - partly the dispute is trivial: the RFCs and dot-line things apply to the _transmission_ phase (net transport) only.
But then: > Standard *nix mailreaders do not seem to have problems with unix > mailbox format, nor do some (most?) DOS mailreaders. This format > has been used for three decades. I don't see why one would expect > that it should change. I would have some doubts about this. -- Historically: I still have stacks of printouts from UUCP(!) mails from the end of the 'eighties; _with_ the dot-line end-of-mail marker. -- I wonder if there are "standard" *nix mailreaders. Those which there are do not some things I'd like to do with my mails, so I might depend on writing my own additional/auxiliary routines: which is why I'm interested in knowing the "true" format of the mails stored in those folders/bags/inboxes. -- those (offline) DOS mailreaders I know of all expect to have the originals mails in one of two formats: either as a "folder"-file with the downloads as they came in, and with the dot-line marker, i.e. as stored capture of the "stream" from the PO server; or as files-per-item, again in the "raw" format. For instance, it doesn't matter if there is or is not the _last_ dot-line in the captured single-file-per-mail; but the same undeclared processing which dropped that one could have un-done the other, very RFC-required doubling of single-dots-per-line _inside_ a mail body. (Quite frequent with HTML-stripped text put into mail bodies.) This then is definitely a nuisance if you want to further process such files with a mailreader which does expect the correct "raw" inbox mail format, and would read read that dot-line as end-of-item mark. In long: I wonder what the heck made _some_ *nix/Lx* MTAs to change the "dots" inside the received mails ?! Not to speak of the doubtful wisdom to add that "From (and no colon)" line as a "start" marker which makes for another needless obstacle to use a mail folder with a maireader not specific for that format. // Heimo Claasen // <hammer at revobild dot net> // Brussels 2002-02-12 The WebPlace of ReRead - and much to read ==> http://www.revobild.net To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
