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Re: POP3 handling of long lines (patch)

2002-11-05 16:30:06
At 2002-11-05 03:18:41+0000, Robert Elz writes:
    Date:        Mon, 04 Nov 2002 16:49:58 +0000
    From:        Nick Barnes <Nick(_dot_)Barnes(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com>
    Message-ID:  
<9547(_dot_)1036428598(_at_)thrush(_dot_)ravenbrook(_dot_)com>

  | I use NMH 1.0.4_1 on FreeBSD, reading mail using POP3.  I am unable to
  | collect messages containing very long lines (greater than 1K
  | characters).

While it would be good if nmh had no such limitations, messages like
that are absolutely not conforming, and how they're treated is
largely up to the implementation.  No-one should be expecting a message
with a line that long to be delivered correctly.

See Section 2.1.1 of rfc2822

Not yet an Internet Standard.  RFC821 has similar language (in section
4.5.3), but who says this message has been carried by SMTP?  The only
relevant Internet Standard seems to be RFC1939 (POP3), which does not
(as far as I can tell) have any similar language.

More to the point, there are messages like this around, and their
authors _do_ expect them to be delivered correctly.  Several common
MUAs (including MH) can generate such messages.  Several common MTAs
(including sendmail) can transport them.  I get about one per month,
from co-workers and clients, and I need to be able to read them.

ps: I have absolutely no idea if there will ever be a new nmh release, or
if anyone really still cares (and is able) to make cvs commits, I know I
can't.

So development of NMH is dead, then?

Nick B

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