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Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 09:11:06 -0700
To: Colin Rafferty <craffert@ml.com>,
        XEmacs Beta List <xemacs-beta@xemacs.org>
From: Jack Repenning <jackr@informix.com>
Subject: Re: mail-extract-address-components bug?
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At 11:51 9/22/97 -0400, Colin Rafferty wrote:
>If someone could tell me how this bogosity started, I would really
>appreciate it.

UNIX does it with passwd-file entries: the so-called "gecos" field (where
user name and such info goes) can have "&", meaning "fill in login here."
I believe this was inherited from Multics (which is to say, it's been there
since just before God was born); I also believe it's configurable, at least
on some Unices.  Many, perhaps most, mailers will form a "From:" address
using the gecos info, either in leading quotes or trailing parens.  So, for
example, I have an account (not this one) where my passwd entry is:

	jack:*:494:300:& Repenning,,,:/u1/home/jack:/bin/ksh

A mailer from that account would build me a "From:" line as one of these:

	From: Jack Repenning <jack@that.place.com>
	From: "Jack Repenning" <jack@that.place.com>
	From: <jack@that.place.com> (Jack Repenning)

... where all "Jack"s are actually a substitution of the login,
capitalized, for "&".

That said, I still question whether mail-extract should be doing this.
Unfortunately, the question may be unanswerable, as it depends on where the
address is coming from, which in general may be indeterminate.  If we
presuppose that this mail address being parsed has already been through the
gentle hands of UNIX, then any gecos-& would already have been replaced,
and any leftover "&" would, perforce, be intentional.  But if we presuppose
that the present address was but-minimally constructed from the passwd
entry, then someone ought to do the gecos-&-munge (maybe - unless this has
been turned off at that site).  But mail-extract is a way-cool general
utility, possibly used in every conceivable context.



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