On Saturday, January 12, 2002, 12:44:45 PM, Marck wrote:

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MDP> Hi Chris,

MDP> On 12 January 2002 at 08:43:26 +0100 (which was 07:43 where I live)
MDP> Chris Lilley wrote to Jernej Simon�i� and made these points:

>> Where is the Re[n] converion defined (eg, some RFC or other) because
>> my sysadmin has asked to to set The Bat! to not do that, on the
>> grounds that RFC 822 does not list this convention.

MDP> That's not actually true. The RFC puts no constraint on the way
MDP> Subject: header content is used.

My sysadmin quoted this from RFC 822, sec 3.6.5:

   The "Subject:" field is the most
   common and contains a short string identifying the topic of the
   message.  When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the
   string "Re: " (from the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by
   the contents of the "Subject:" field body of the original message.
   If this is done, only one instance of the literal string "Re: " ought
   to be used since use of other strings or more than one instance can
   lead to undesirable consequences.

So thats a MAY for using "Re: " at all, but if you do then the MUA
ought (which I would read as a SHOULD) to have only one of them. The
use of MAY, SHOULD, SHALL etc is defined in RFC 2119 (and I don't like
the capitals either but there we are). Clearly RFC 822 precedes that
though, chronologically.
   
Now personally I can see that using "Re[n]" is a way to ensure that
only one occurence of the string "Re" occurs at the start of the
subject. However, its "Re: " (four characters) not "Re" (two
characters) that is discussed in the RFC.

MDP>  Your sysadmin shouldn't have any
MDP> cause to complain about the content of the message body or pre-amble
MDP> unless it really does contravene the RFCs. "Re[n]" does not contravene
MDP> any.

That is true, it does not contravene any (though it seems odd that the
usage is defined only by common practice and not written down
anywhere).

>> I assume ther is a good reason for it though and it seems useful, so
>> I would prefer to point my sysadmin at some specification that The
>> Bat! is complying with ... any ideas?

MDP> It is not a specification. It may have come from FIDO, but it's very
MDP> "Bat!". I actually turned it off completely myself very early on and
MDP> have left it that way. All of my templates use the %SINGLERE macro to
MDP> do that.

OK, I may need to fall back on that .... thanks for the tip.


-- 
 Chris                            mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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