ugh.book

From: <[email protected]> 79

Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1988 22:23 EDT

From: [email protected]

To: UNIX-HATERS

Subject: mailer warts

Did you ever wonder how the Unix mail readers parse mail files?

You see these crufty messages from all these losers out in UUCP

land, and they always have parts of other messages inserted in them,

with bizarre characters before each inserted line. Like this:

From Unix Weenie <piffle!padiddle!pudendum!weenie>

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 22 12:33:08 EDT

From: Unix Weenie <piffle!padiddle!pudendum!weenie>

To: net.soc.singles.sf-lovers.lobotomies.astronomy.laser-

lovers.unix.wizards.news.group

In your last post you meant to flame me but you clearly don’t

know what your talking about when you say

> >> %> $> Received: from magilla.uucp by gorilla.uucp

> >> %> $> via uunet with sendmail

> >> %> $> ...

so think very carefully about what you say when you post

>From your home machien because when you sent that msg it

went to all the people who dont want to read your

falming so don’t do it ):-(

Now! Why does that “From” on the second line preceding paragraph

have an angle bracket before it? I mean, you might think it had some-

thing to do with the secret codes that Usenet Unix weenies use when

talking to each other, to indicate that they're actually quoting the fif-

teenth preceding message in some interminable public conversation,

but no, you see, that angle bracket was put there by the mailer. The

mail reading program parses mail files by looking for lines beginning

with “From.” So the mailer has to mutate text lines beginning with

“From” so’s not to confuse the mail readers. You can verify this for

yourself by sending yourself a mail message containing in the mes-

sage body a line beginning with “From.”

This is a very important point, so it bears repeating. The reason for
“>From” comes from the way that the Unix mail system to distinguishes
between multiple e-mail messages in a single mailbox (which, following
the Unix design, is just another file). Instead of using a special control
sequence, or putting control information into a separate file, or putting a