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Re: Another take on formail -r versus formail -rt

1998-09-15 13:24:20
On 15 September 1998, era eriksson <era(_at_)iki(_dot_)fi> wrote:
[...]
Without more ado, here's what I have so far:

 $ lynx -dump -nolist http://www.iki.fi/~era/procmail/formail.html

                        What's this with formail -r?
[...]
    In so many words, this is how it comes out:

    formail -r

 Resent-Reply-To:
 Resent-Sender:
 Resent-From:
 Resent-Receipt-To:
 Errors-To:
 Reply-To:
 Sender:
 From_
 Return-Path:
 Path:
 From:

    formail -rt

 Resent-Reply-To:
 Resent-From:
 Resent-Sender:
 Reply-To:
 From:
 Sender:
 Resent-Receipt-To:
 Errors-To:
 Return-Path:
 From_
 Path:
[...] 
Can somebody confirm that Errors-To: is deprecated?

    This is an UUCP thing, and it's indeed deprecated. Here's the
relevant quote from sendmail's manual:


:     2.9.1.  Errors-To:
:
:             If  errors  occur  anywhere during processing,
:        this header will cause error messages to go to  the
:        listed  addresses.   This  is  intended for mailing
:        lists.
:
:             The Errors-To: header was created in  the  bad
:        old  days  when UUCP didn't understand the distinc-
:        tion between an envelope and a header; this  was  a
:        hack  to  provide  what should now be passed as the
:        envelope sender address.  It should go away.  It is
:        only used if the UseErrorsTo option is set.
:
:             The Errors-To: header is officially deprecated
:        and will go away in a future release.


(If you ask me, UUCP itself should "go away in a future release", but I
suppose this just isn't going to happen in the next half a century :-)).

(Is there an RFC for this?)

    Probably not, since UUCP-related RFCs haven't been updated in a
while.

Any other comments are extremely welcome as well, of course. (Why
would the priority of Resent-Sender: vs. Resent-From: be switched
between the two, for example?)
[...]

    Possibly because the priorities for "Sender:" and "From:" are
switched too (which makes more sense anyway).

(And why on Earth would anybody prefer a random bang path from the
Path: header over From:?)

    The "From:" address might not be accessible from outside (think of
a machine not permanently connected to Internet), while "Return-Path:"
is added by the final MTA, and is supposed to contain "definitive
information about the address and route back to the message's
originator" (RFC 822).

    Anyway, personally I wonder why would anybody want to look at the
"From_": it's not guaranteed to contain a FQDN, and in many cases it
doesn't (let alone the fact that the whole line may not be included in
the message, as is the case with some mailbox formats).

    Regards,

    Liviu

-- 
Dr. Liviu Daia                   e-mail:   daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro
Institute of Mathematics         web page: http://www.imar.ro/~daia
of the Romanian Academy          PGP key:  finger 
daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro

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