Subject: "=20"

From: [email-masked] (Natalie Maynor)
Date: 5 May 1995 09:59:47 -0500

People on one of the mailing lists I'm on have been wondering why some
people's mail has little "=20"s at the end of each line.  I'm positive
I've seen an explanation of it in the past, but the only thing I can
remember about it now was that pine was somehow implicated in it.  If
any of you could provide an explanation, I would appreciate it -- mainly
because I hate it when I know I've heard the details of something before
but can no longer remember even the gist of them.  Thanks.
  -- Natalie ([email-masked])

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From: [email-masked] (Larry Miller [DT])
Date: 5 May 1995 12:01:04 -0600

> any of you could provide an explanation, I would appreciate it -- mainly

I believe pine encodes certain characters in messages that contain
non-standard ascii.  If this thusly-encoded message is sent to a
mailer which doesn't know how to interpret them, it sends them on
literally, and they show up in the encoded format.  Is this list in a
language other than English?

Larry Miller
Administrador de Redes / Network Administrator
Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas del Noroeste, La Paz, BCS Mexico 
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Natalie Maynor)
Date: 6 May 1995 07:01:21 -0500

>language other than English?

It's in English.  But the postings might include odd characters at
times.  I'll watch for that.  Thanks for the response.
  -- Natalie ([email-masked])

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From: [email-masked] (PNEWS)
Date: 7 May 1995 09:57:06 GMT

Natalie Maynor ([email-masked]) wrote:
: [email-masked] (Larry Miller [DT]) writes:

: >I believe pine encodes certain characters in messages that contain
: >non-standard ascii.  If this thusly-encoded message is sent to a
: >mailer which doesn't know how to interpret them, it sends them on
: >literally, and they show up in the encoded format.  Is this list in a
: >language other than English?

: It's in English.  But the postings might include odd characters at
: times.  I'll watch for that.  Thanks for the response.
:   -- Natalie ([email-masked])

It occurs with MIME incompatability, especially on lists. How can you 
include a header to avoid this from happening? I've asked this question 
before and apparently NO ONE can provide an adequate answer..

-Hank-

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From: [email-masked] (Trey Harris)
Date: 7 May 1995 15:45:17 GMT

>before and apparently NO ONE can provide an adequate answer..

Listproc (characterized by the "To: Multiple recipients of" header) in
particular rips out all headers and replaces them with its own.  This
means that if you have a MIME-encoded message, you have to guess at its
type, and if you have a MIME multipart message you have to recreate the
boundary-encoding, which is obscure.  It's a hairy problem, but there's 
nothing you can do to get the list processor to behave differently.  
(Maybe a message to listserv with 'SET LIST xxx DWIM'? ;)

The powers-that-be where I work have asked me to look at a utility called 
"munpack" which is supposed to extract MIME messages from text, even with 
corrupt headers (but that's only what a powers-that-be committee has told 
me, I don't know if it's true :).   ftp://ftp.andrew.cmu.edu/pub/mpack/.
-- 
Trey Harris                              http://sunsite.unc.edu/harris
  System Administrator, Project Isis, Office of Information Technology
                       The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 7 May 1995 18:35:49 GMT

The =20 on the end of the line is the "quoted-printable"  representation of a blank.
Since some mail transport agents strip trailing blanks the mime capable user agent
used quoted-printable to make sure they were not stripped.  Programs are dumb
so they have to assume that it it's there it must be important.

Glenn A. Malling <[email-masked]>
Syracuse University Computing Services   +1 (315) 443-4111
220 Machinery Hall  Syracuse, New York 13244-1260

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From: [email-masked] (Barry Bouwsma)
Date: 7 May 1995 18:58:22 GMT

>(Maybe a message to listserv with 'SET LIST xxx DWIM'? ;)

    Sure, LISTSERV does include the possiblilty to get mail with full
headers.  Unfortunately, it's not the default, and likewise, anyone in
need of full headers (for MIME awareness) must issue this command.
Quoting here from the LISTSERV mail received upon giving the INFO REFCARD
command...

[*CUT* *SNIP* *CHOP* *THWACK* *SLICE* *SEVER*]
      *-> LISTSERV REFCARD: General user commands                *
[*CRUNCH* *MUNCH*]
SET          listname options                  Alter your subscription options:
[*CLIP* *CLIP* *CLIP* *CLIP* *CLIP*]
Options for mail headers of incoming postings (choose one):
             FULLhdr or FULLBsmtp              -> "Full" mail headers
             IETFhdr                           -> Internet-style headers
             SHORThdr or SHORTBsmtp            -> Short (default) headers
             DUALhdr                           -> Dual headers, useful with PC
                                                  or Mac mail programs
[end quotation]
HTH. HAND.
-- 
 Barry Bouwsma, will crash computers for chocolate and dental care
    Please direct mail to  <[email-masked]> (MIME-aware)
In a blindfolded taste test, 4 of 5 newsreaders could not tell the
difference between Spam and Velveeta...