Eric Thomas wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Sep 1996 16:04:14 -0400 Stan Ryckman <[log in to unmask]>
> said:
>
> >Hmm. Just looked at it. Multiple "From:" appears to be legal, since it's
> >not explicitly prohibited (and text at the beginning says that multiples
> >are allowed unless explicitly prohibited).
>
> No, it says that the meaning of multiple tags is not defined by RFC822,
> in other words, that every programmer and every product is free to define
> it in a way that makes sense in its particular context. LISTSERV defines
> it as "I can't determine which of the multiple From: fields is the real
> originator, so I won't process this message".
To be technical about it, the RFC says nothing about what the receiver
of a message must do with it (redistribute it, trash it, or bounce it).
The problem is more likely that LISTSERV does what you say, but doesn't
document the behavior. Multiple "From:" are legal, we agree, and
LISTSERV can do what it wants, we agree, so I think it gets down
to documenting what it does (or does not) do.
Your original comment about a broken gateway passing the multiple
From: headers would not necessarily be correct; if it received them,
it should probably pass them on, since they are RFC-compliant, despite
the fact that neither you, nor I, nor LISTSERV has a clue what they
should mean. If, however, it *generated* the second From: header,
then it would truly be broken. Unfortunately I deleted that post
so I may be off the mark here, going from memory.
> >Not only that, RFC 822 itself contains examples of "From:" fields
> >containing multiple addresses, so *that* is certainly legal.
>
> Take a look at the "Date:" examples and let me know how you feel about
> the quality of the examples :-)
I did :-)
They don't even seem to qualify for the syntax (i.e., no colon in the
time fields).
I think that between 1982 and 1989 someone caught on to this problem,
and they re-described the "Date:" fields in RFC 1123, but gave no
examples there. (Major changes: use 4-digit years, numeric timezones
strongly encouraged, and a note that Military timezones were completely
broken and meaningless since RFC 822 got the sign wrong!)
> > From: a,b
>
> LISTSERV doesn't support that brain-damage either (which nobody ever
> uses, it's one of these things that got added for metaphysical reasons
> and that we're still paying for 14 years later). It's very simple,
> LISTSERV wants ONE address from which the command originates. LISTSERV
> doesn't support the concept of having a command originating from multiple
> people at the same time.
Makes sense to me; it just should be documented. IMHO.
Cheers,
Stan.
|