Re: Truncation of email subject lines

I have confirmed that my email client, elm-ME+, is wrapping long subject
lines on output, e.g.:

Subject: Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: sslinfo contrib module - information
about current SSL

and because majordomo is stripping any secondary lines, the subjects are
getting truncated. It took me a while to figure this out because my
mail reader displays multi-line subjects just fine.

When we started talking about the problems with multi-line subjects, I
figured it wasn't a problem --- who would make a multi-line subject? I
didn't realize mail readers would do that automatically.

Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see
where it is happening in the code.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:

> Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see
> where it is happening in the code.

I'd say it'd be better to hack MajorDomo to be RFC-compliant. :)

-Doug

Hi, Bruce,

Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see
> where it is happening in the code.

AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer
seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the
fix.

The only possible bug I could see is that your mailer implements the
indentation incorrectly (tabs vs. spaces, incorrect level of indentation
etc.).

Markus

--
Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG
Dipl. Inf. | Software Development GIS

Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org
www.nosoftwarepatents.org

Hi, Bruce,

Markus Schaber wrote:

>> Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see
>> where it is happening in the code.
>
> AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer
> seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the
> fix.
>
> The only possible bug I could see is that your mailer implements the
> indentation incorrectly (tabs vs. spaces, incorrect level of indentation
> etc.).

I just re-read http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html and it seems that
the first character of the continuation has to be a space or tab, so I
assume that your mailer wors correctly.

Btw, header lines have a limit of 998 characters, so, for longer
subjects, wrapping them is a must. :-)

HTH,
Markus
--
Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG
Dipl. Inf. | Software Development GIS

Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org
www.nosoftwarepatents.org

Markus Schaber wrote:
> Hi, Bruce,
>
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> > Should I try hacking my mail reader to prevent this? I think I see
> > where it is happening in the code.
>
> AFAICT, the wrapping of long header lines by indentation (as your mailer
> seems to do) is RFC conformant, so I think it is majordomo who needs the
> fix.

Yep. We were actually offered a patch on Majordomo's mailing list, a
couple of days ago. It made a lot of sense to me -- it was kinda
obvious that without it, multiline stuff would be truncated. What I'm
not sure about is why it would apply only to Subject: and not, say,
to Received:

Marc would need to install it to see if it fixes things. (It may be
smarter to install a test list somewhere else, replicate then problem,
then apply to patch and prove that the problem no longer occurs; but I'm
rather short on time to do it myself)

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support