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.