Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
To: Mark Crispin <MRC@Panda.COM>
cc: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: changes 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 01 Jun 1995 12:38:28 PDT."
             <MailManager.802035508.19114.mrc@Ikkoku-Kan.Panda.COM> 
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Date: Thu, 01 Jun 1995 13:54:23 -0700
From: michael.derrico@software.com (Michael D'Errico)
Message-ID: <19950601205352437.AAA178@rome.software.com>

> > Since <word> is defined to be either an <atom> or a <quoted-string>, you
> > could no longer have something like:
> >     From: "Michael D'Errico"."Technical Support"@Software.com
> Good point.  My parser swallows this OK, although it'll consolidate it into
> one quoted string which isn't correct.  Most other parsers that I've seen do
> much worse.  Is anyone actually is able to use this capability in real life?

Our MTA will let you set up an account with any valid address, including one 
like the example above.  Why anyone would want their address to look like 
that, I don't know :-)

> C.2.1 in RFC-822 forbids this behavior; no LWSP is permitted between "." and
> surrounding lexical tokens.

That's really hidden in there!  And actually, I don't agree that it prevents 
LWSP around a ".".  It says that the LWSP must be removed when presenting the 
information to the user, or when gatewaying to a non-822 system.

The LWSP issue aside, you are also allowed to put comments between atoms....

> Those of us who comply with it are repeatedly badgered by individuals who (1)
> want their personal names to show their middle initial with the period and (2)
> do not want their personal names to have quotes around them.  These people,
> unfortunately, tend to be managers who have little sympathy for protocol
> purity, especially when some other package "does it right".

I remember the time I had to change my address from 
<michael.d'errico@software.com> because I was "violating the standards" and 
caused problems with some mailing list software (actually I think it was for 
an IETF list!).  It didn't surprise me.  I also clearly remember when I had 
to add support for:

    "some::weird::address"%[123.45.67.8]@some.domain

because sendmail could handle it.  Talk about your protocol violations!!!

Mike