I would  like to suggest  that mail gateways expanded  all tabs in  the RFC822
header before forwarding the mail into  BITNET. It is difficult to say whether
EBCDIC software that doesn't support "tabs"  are a violation of RFC822 or not,
since what is  commonly (and incorrectly) called "tab" in  EBCDIC (PT, Program
Tab - X'05') does not have the same  meaning as the ASCII tab. For example, if
you send  such a tab  to a 3270  device, it will move  the cursor to  the next
field in the data  stream, which will most likely be the  next screen line but
could be  just anything else.  If you  TYPE a file  containing a tab,  it gets
translated into a blank.  Anyway, it is not clear whether an  EBCDIC PT can be
considered as  LWSP or not,  and it  is certainly safer  to expand it  than to
leave  it "as  is".  The same  applies  to quoted  CR or  LF:  they should  be
translated into spaces before being sent out. There is no CR nor LF in EBCDIC:
there is only a NL character (New Line)  which is a combination of CR+LF, so a
quoted CR or a  quoted LF don't have any meaning on an  EBCDIC machine and can
only cause problems. A quoted CRLF could be translated into a NL, though.
 
Meanwhile  I'll change  the LISTSERV  routines to  translate PT  into a  blank
before parsing the header.
 
  Eric