On Wed, 12 Jun 1996 06:26:52 PDT, you said:
> ??? If the attachment is base64 encoded (as it would have to be
> to be interoperable), there *are* no blank lines, so it works
> just fine. I've done it with the VM version and it doesn't even
> hiccup.
 
Read the RFC's carefully.  If the "attachment" is the *ONLY* MIME body part
this is OK.
 
What *breaks* is if you havea *multiple* MIME bodyparts that looks like:
 
---your-content-boundary-here---
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
 
base-64-stuff-here
---your-content-boundary-here---
 
Since the MIME spec says "use the RFC822 definition of headers and body"
to distinguish where the bodypart headers end, and where the body starts,
and RFC822 says "a null line", that line before base-64-here must be a NULL
line.  Unfortunately, on VM systems, that line often suddenly becones a line
with one blank on it, which is NOT the same thing.  Paul Bryant of Rutherford
Labs and myself both got bit by this when our users started sending MIME
base-64 attachements to VM-based lists....
 
If you doubt me, I'll be happy to forward you some mail that demonstrates the
problem ;)
 
--
                                Valdis Kletnieks
                                Computer Systems Engineer
                                Virginia Tech