Subject: sender's address incorrect

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Nov 1995 20:21:28 GMT

When I view messages in the current folder (the I option), some of the 
sender's address are not shown correctly. Instead, the "To: myaddress" 
is shown. This only happens to some but not all e-mail. The problem this 
causes is that I cannot use R command to reply to the sender because of 
the incorrect address. Why this happens and how to correct it? Thanks.

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 18:40:35 -0800 (PST)

The "To: myaddress" is only shown if you sent the message, or if there
is no valid sender's address in the message.  In the latter case, Pine
has no way to know where to send a reply...

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

On 6 Nov 1995 [email-masked] wrote:

> Date: 6 Nov 1995 20:21:28 GMT
> From: [email-masked]
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: sender's address incorrect
>

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Nov 1995 13:36:45 GMT

>has no way to know where to send a reply...

The problem is that there is indeed a valid address of sender (see the 
enclosed) and there is no problem when using the UNIX mail program to 
list the incoming e-mail. The sender's address always shows up correctly 
in UNIX mail. But when using the I option in the PINE's main menu to 
list the incoming e-mail, the sender's address is shown as "to: 
yky356@....".  I found that if the sender's address shows up only in the 
first line of the header and nowhere else, PINE has the problem of 
figuring out sender's address. If, however, there is another "From:.." 
one or two lines above the "To:.." line, then PINE has no problem 
figuring out sender's address. Why?

------------- example of a problematic header --------------------
>From [email-masked] Fri Nov  3 10:58:14 1995
Received: by eastman.com id AA31534
  (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for [email-masked]); Fri, 3 Nov 1995 10:53:16 -0500
Received: from gatekeeper.eastman.com by eastman.com with SMTP id 
AA49451
        (5.67b/SMI-4.1 for <[email-masked]>); Fri, 3 Nov 1995 
10:53:15 -0500
Received: by gatekeeper.eastman.com; id LAA24441; Fri, 3 Nov 1995 
11:10:44 -0500
Received: from nomad.holonet.net(198.207.169.2) by 
gatekeeper.eastman.com via smap (g3.0.1)
        id xma024437; Fri, 3 Nov 95 11:10:40 -0500
Received: from jubal.mdli.com by nomad.holonet.net ([email-masked])
        id HAA02047; Fri, 3 Nov 1995 07:52:48 -0800
Received: from gimli.mdli.com by jubal.mdli.com (AIX 4.1/UCB 5.64/
9393.1)
          id AA55750; Fri, 3 Nov 1995 07:52:15 -0800
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 1995 07:52:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Incompatibility of ISIS/Base and WorldScript II
To: [email-masked]
Status: RO

---

From: Apu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 11:25:48 -0500 (EST)

On 7 Nov 1995 [email-masked] wrote:

> list the incoming e-mail. [...]

The 'problem' from your point of view is that Pine is only looking at the 
"From: " address.  mail is either only looking at the "From " address or 
is looking at both the "From " and "From: " addresses.  (The ':' is _very_ 
significant.)  The debate as to whether this is a bug or feature is left 
up to others.

The "From " line has a very specific format and is what determines where 
each message begins as they are stored (in Berkeley mail format, that is) 
as one long file, one message immediately after the other.*  The "From " 
line is also useful for determining the true mailer of the message as 
that line is added by the first system handling the message, and short of 
recompiling sendmail (or its equiv.), cannot be altered by the user (at 
least not easily).  The "From: " line has a much looser format, and can 
much more easily be changed by the user to reflect different e-mail 
addresses and user names.

*-This is why whenever a line begins with "From " (without the quotes), 
you will see it as ">From " (again, without the quotes)...this is to 
prevent the mail client from getting confused and thinking a new message 
has begun when, in fact, it is just a regular line in the message body.

As far as I know (I haven't specifically looked up the relevant RFCs), 
the "From: " header is required for a properly formatted e-mail 
message, so I would argue that you are just seeing a side-affect of 
receiving mail from a non-standard mail program.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[email-masked]
                           WARNING:  I DISCRIMINATE
                      E-mail is dealt with immediately;
     Snail mail, if I have nothing to do (never) or I'm bored (sometimes)

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 08:25:25 -0800 (PST)

The "From MARIA..." line is *NOT* part of the RFC-822 header set.
It is a message separator line used in some, but by no means all, mailbox
formats.  This is out-of-band information that is not part of the actual
message, and depending on the system, is often unreliable or unobtainable.

For Pine to know who the message is from, the message must have a valid
RFC-822 "From: " header (that's the one with the colon).

The absence of the 822 From: suggests a bug or misconfiguration of the
MUA or mail transport software at the originating site, although in cases
where UUCP is involved, I believe it often falls to the receiving MTA to
fix the messages before storing them in the incoming mail spool.

-teg

On 7 Nov 1995 [email-masked] wrote:

> Received: from mdli.com by mdli.com (PMDF V4.3-10 #6626)
>  id <[email-masked]>; Fri, 03 Nov 1995 07:52:41 -0800 (PST)
> Message-Id: <[email-masked]>
> X-Vms-To: IN%"[email-masked]"
> X-Vms-Cc: MARIAS
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
> Status: RO
>
>
>
>

---

From: [email-masked] (Jonathan and DearOldDad)
Date: 7 Nov 1995 14:51:18 GMT

David L Miller ([email-masked]) wrote:
: The "To: myaddress" is only shown if you sent the message, or if there
: is no valid sender's address in the message.  In the latter case, Pine
: has no way to know where to send a reply...

: On 6 Nov 1995 [email-masked] wrote:
: > When I view messages in the current folder (the I option), some of the
: > sender's address are not shown correctly. Instead, the "To: myaddress"
: > is shown. This only happens to some but not all e-mail. ... etc ...

Sorry David, but it *DOES* happen sometimes for other unexplainable 
reasons, not always, and not always with the same folders or messages ... 
As near as I can figure out, it's not PINE doing this, it's the mail 
server or in my case as a dial-up pc to a unix server, possibly some 
noise in the phone line ???  I don't know, but it DOES happen.  G'Day.

                          /\    /~\/\/\    /\      /\  /\   |>>
John (aka DearOldDad)    /\ \/\/  / /  \/\/  \/\/\/  \/  \/\|Fore!
Pocono Mtns PA USA EARTH/__\/_/__/_/___/[email-masked]|_____

---

From: [email-masked] (Mr. Sarang Gupta)
Date: 15 Nov 1995 09:24:11 -0700

In article <[email-masked]>,
>fix the messages before storing them in the incoming mail spool.

I had this problem in a similar context. It seems the mail program ELM
generates "From" lines without colons (ie, in the format "From person
date"). It's possible (probable?) that ELM predates RFC-822. My boss
solved the problem by telling ELM users who sent him email (ie, me
<G>) to stop using ELM and start using PINE. You might try this and/or
switching to ELM (ELM has no problem with colon-less From lines; my
boss was less than enthusiastic about my suggestion he switch to ELM).

Sarang ([email-masked])