From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 13 05:31:42 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91B8616A41C for ; Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:31:42 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from flowers@users.sourceforge.net) Received: from pd2mo2so.prod.shaw.ca (shawidc-mo1.cg.shawcable.net [24.71.223.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4885243D48 for ; Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:31:42 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from flowers@users.sourceforge.net) Received: from pd5mr2so.prod.shaw.ca (pd5mr2so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.233]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0II000FVLCNND160@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:30:59 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pn2ml1so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.145]) by pd5mr2so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0II00085BCNNSU50@pd5mr2so.prod.shaw.ca> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:30:59 -0600 (MDT) Received: from aldebaran.local (S01060010a72631f9.cg.shawcable.net [68.144.46.209]) by l-daemon (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.18 (built Jul 28 2003)) with SMTP id <0II000A2OCNNTG@l-daemon> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:30:59 -0600 (MDT) Received: (qmail 55494 invoked by uid 1001); Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:30:59 +0000 Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:30:59 -0600 From: Danny MacMillan In-reply-to: <200506130445.j5D4jVKM096025@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> To: Olivier Nicole Message-id: <20050613053059.GB55431@aldebaran.local> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-disposition: inline References: <20050613043910.GA55308@aldebaran.local> <200506130445.j5D4jVKM096025@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to disable > quoting of lines starting with From in email body? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:31:42 -0000 On Mon, Jun 13, 2005 at 11:45:31AM +0700, Olivier Nicole wrote: > > Every time I read an email that has a line in the message body that > > starts with the word "From", the line is quoted with a > character. > > I'd say that > > 1) when you read an email the > was added by the sender, before the > email was send to you, so it is normal that you cannot find where > it was added. > > 2) when you are sending and email, you have to add the > else you will > not conform to email format anymore and you would be liklely to > create problems to the recipient... > > So leave the > where it is :) Hi, Olivier. Thank you for your reply. The model you describe above doesn't seem consistent with the symptoms I'm seeing. I think it's got to be a problem with my machine because: 1) I have numerous email accounts, some of which are delivered to this FreeBSD machine on my network and some of which I retrieve via POP3 from my ISP's mail server. I read the mail delivered to my FreeBSD machine using Mutt etc. as I detailed earlier. I read the mail delivered to my ISP using Outlook 2k. If the same email with a line starting with "From" is delivered to both places, only the email delivered to this machine has those lines quoted with the ">" character. That points rather definitively to some difference on this machine's email pipeline as being the culprit. 2) While my knowledge of the RFCs is far from enyclopaedic, I do know that they generally prescribe the on-the-wire format only. The ">" quoting is a fundamental requirement of the mbox store design but is completely superfluous for message transmission. Including the > quoting as a requirement for transmission would be a very bad design. I quickly scanned RFC 2821 and didn't see anything suggesting that it was a requirement. For this reason, and because of the behaviour outlined in point 1) above, I don't think the > is being transmitted; rather I think it is being added by something on my machine, now that I think it through. 3) This is hardly conclusive, but I have connected to SMTP servers using telnet on port 25 and sent mail with lines starting with From in the body, and these messages arrived at their destination intact. I welcome further input. -- Danny MacMillan