Thread: Truncation of email subject lines
I have confirmed that my email client, elm-ME+, is wrapping long subject lines on output, e.g.: Subject: Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: sslinfo contrib module - information about current SSL and because majordomo is stripping any secondary lines, the subjects are getting truncated. It took me a while to figure this out because my mail reader displays multi-line subjects just fine. When we started talking about the problems with multi-line subjects, I figured it wasn't a problem --- who would make a multi-line subject? I didn't realize mail readers would do that automatically. Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see where it is happening in the code. -- Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes: > Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see > where it is happening in the code. I'd say it'd be better to hack MajorDomo to be RFC-compliant. :) -Doug
Hi, Bruce, Bruce Momjian wrote: > Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see > where it is happening in the code. AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the fix. The only possible bug I could see is that your mailer implements the indentation incorrectly (tabs vs. spaces, incorrect level of indentation etc.). Markus -- Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG Dipl. Inf. | Software Development GIS Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org www.nosoftwarepatents.org
Hi, Bruce, Markus Schaber wrote: >> Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see >> where it is happening in the code. > > AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer > seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the > fix. > > The only possible bug I could see is that your mailer implements the > indentation incorrectly (tabs vs. spaces, incorrect level of indentation > etc.). I just re-read http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html and it seems that the first character of the continuation has to be a space or tab, so I assume that your mailer wors correctly. Btw, header lines have a limit of 998 characters, so, for longer subjects, wrapping them is a must. :-) HTH, Markus -- Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG Dipl. Inf. | Software Development GIS Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org www.nosoftwarepatents.org
Markus Schaber wrote: > Hi, Bruce, > > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > > Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see > > where it is happening in the code. > > AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer > seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the > fix. Yep. We were actually offered a patch on Majordomo's mailing list, a couple of days ago. It made a lot of sense to me -- it was kinda obvious that without it, multiline stuff would be truncated. What I'm not sure about is why it would apply only to Subject: and not, say, to Received: Marc would need to install it to see if it fixes things. (It may be smarter to install a test list somewhere else, replicate then problem, then apply to patch and prove that the problem no longer occurs; but I'm rather short on time to do it myself) -- Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/ PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support