Date: 17 Nov 1996 05:13:15 -0000
Message-ID: <19961117051315.19343.qmail@koobera.math.uic.edu>
From: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@koobera.math.uic.edu>
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: regarding the quoting of characters in addresses...

> Let me refer you to the following DRUMs messages:

Let me remind you that we discussed this in March 1996.

John Myers reported Eric Thomas's observation that the IBM VM SMTP
server doesn't handle backslashes.

I pointed out that uicvm.uic.edu _does_ handle backslashes.

Eric said, hmm, maybe IBM fixed it.

> <imap://cyrus.andrew.cmu.edu/archive.drums;UID=86>

That's Eric Thomas, in June 1995, reporting his observation that the
IBM VM SMTP server doesn't handle backslashes. What a surprise.

I don't know how many years ago Eric actually ran into this problem. I'm
skeptical of your unsubstantiated claim that the problem still exists.

> <imap://cyrus.andrew.cmu.edu/archive.drums;UID=96>

There's no useful content in that message; it's just somebody who
doesn't understand the difference between content and encoding.

> I'd like to deprecate generation of plain \ quoting in 821 to make 822 &
> 821 closer,

What benefit is this supposed to have?

Here's a robust way to decode 821 addresses:

   e = q = 0
   for each character ch
     if e: print ch; e = 0; continue
     if q: if ch is >: stop
     if ch is \: e = 1; continue
     if ch is ": q = !q; continue
     print ch

How exactly does it simplify this code if backslashes can't appear
outside quotes?

> Oh, sorry about using the not yet standard/supported IMAP URL,

That's okay. It was vaguely amusing learning enough about IMAP to
retrieve the messages by hand.

---Dan
Turn an 8MB 486 into a fast Linux mail relay. http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html