Re: unrmail

[Kevin Rodgers]

Jonathan Kamens wrote:

> I doubt it's documented anywhere "official".  The UNIX mbox
> format was spawned long, long ago, when there was no need for
> such documentation because all the people writing software to
> use the format sat in the same building, saw each other every
> day at work, and went out for beers together afterwards.


And now there are at least 3 variants of the "\n\nFrom " separator;
VM calls them From_ (BSD), From_-with-Content-Length (new SysV), and
BellFrom_ (old SysV) and doesn't even try to parse a sender address
or date following the "From ".


> A brief search revealed a man page for the format at
> <URL:http://www.threadnet.com/manpage.php3?page=5+mbox>. 
> This man page looks like it might have come from the qmail
> distribution, which would mean that it was written long, long
> after the mbox format was first defined and used.


Definitely.


> > > When reconstructing the "From " header, software
> > > should make its best guess about that date, e.g., by using
> > > the "Date:" header in the message.
> > But that's redundant.
>
> It wasn't redundant in its ORIGINAL form, because the "From "
> date reflected when the message was RECEIVED, which might be
> different from what's in the Date: header.


I think that since the "From " separator is added by the MDA, it should
reflect when the message was delivered (i.e. written to the mailbox).

> However, when
> reconstructing a "From " line which has been lost, the most
> reasonable thing to do is to use the Date: header to achieve
> some semblance of normalcy.


The Received: header added by the local MTA would be even closer to

the time the message was actually delivered.


--
Kevin Rodgers