From: cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar)
Subject: Re: Forward
Organization: Brandeis University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 22:15:37 GMT

cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar) (yes, that's me) writes:
>When you say "no" to the "Edit outgoing message?" question, elm
>composes your message this way:
>
>----------
>Forwarded message:
>>From blah blah blah
>>Other:
>>Headers:
>
>body of message
>----------

  I just tested this, and it looks like I was wrong.  If you answer
"no" to that question, elm will *not* quote the From_ line with a >
character.  So, the line immediately following the "Forwarded
message:" line is a valid From_ line, and I would not blame any normal
Unix mailer for thinking that this is the start of a new message.
  As it happens, I always edit the message anyway, even when I tell
elm that I don't want to edit it.  This is because I want to remove
what I think are extraneous header lines from the forwarded message,
even though I don't want the message quote with >'s (which is what elm
will do if you say you want to edit the message).  And, apparently,
I've always considered the From_ line as extraneous, and deleted it,
so I've never run into this problem.  But, elm's default behavior here
is the problem, and should be considered a serious (and easily fixed)
bug.

Unfortunately, to make matters a little more confusing, I just noticed
the following tidbit from RFC976 (UUCP Mail):


Network Working Group                                    Mark. R. Horton
Request for Comments: 976                              Bell Laboratories
                                                           February 1986

                 UUCP Mail Interchange Format Standard
[...]

2.  Basics

   Messages can be divided into two parts: the envelope and the message.
   The envelope contains information needed by the mail transport
   services, and the message contains information useful to the sender
   and receiver.  The message is divided into the header and the body.
   Sometimes an intermediate host will add to the message (e.g. a
   Received line) but, except in the case of a gateway which must
   translate formats, it is not expected that intermediate hosts will
   change the message itself.  In the UUCP world, the envelope consists
   of the "destination addresses" (normally represented as the argument
   or arguments to the rmail command) and the "source path" (normally
   represented in one or more lines at the beginning of the message
   beginning either "From " or ">From ", sometimes called "From_
   lines".)  The RFC-822 header lines (including "From:" and "To:") are
   part of the message, as is the text of the message body itself.


  Apparently, according to this RFC, ">From " was once a recognized
and valid variant of From_ line.  So, quoting From_ lines with >
characters may not be guaranteed to work.  I personally have never
seen a mailer that behaves this way.  Anyone else?

  --  Cos (Ofer Inbar)  --  cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu
  --  WBRS (BRiS)  --  WBRS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu  WBRS@brandeis.bitnet
Now, for the Quote out of Context(TM), from Mike Haertel <mike@ai.mit.edu>
"I think it's pretty clear that Unix is dead as a research system."