Subject: standard path for mailcap files: is it going to stay?

From: Alessandro MIOTTO <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:12:33 +0100 (MET)

I posted this message two weeks ago without getting replies. Sorry for 
the repetition, but I think the subject is important enough.

Our site maintains a software repository available on all Unix 
workstations under the /usr/local hierarchy. This obviously includes 
pine and a global mailcap file, so I have been asked to modify pine 
in such a way that it reads the mailcap file from /usr/local/etc 
(which is under site control) rather than /etc (which under the sysadm
control).

I have then found the following lines in mailcap.c:

[...]
/*
 * We've decided not to implement the RFC1524 standard minimum path, because
 * some of us think it is harder to debug a problem when you may be misled
 * into looking at the wrong mailcap entry.
 */
#ifdef DOS
#define MC_PATH_SEPARATOR ';'
#else /* !DOS */
#define MC_PATH_SEPARATOR ':'
#define MC_STDPATH         ".mailcap:/etc/mailcap"
#endif /* !DOS */
[...]

and this in RFC1524:

   [...]
   For UNIX, a path search of mailcap files is specified.  The default
   path search is specified as including at least the following:
 
   $HOME/.mailcap:/etc/mailcap:/usr/etc/mailcap:/usr/local/etc/mailcap
   [...]

Is it possible that in the coming version of pine "some of you" are 
going to reconsider the RFC1524 standard minimum path?

	Alessandro

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 Alessandro Miotto - CN/DCI/UES      | Tel:    +41 22 767 9576
 CERN - European Laboratory          | Fax:    +41 22 767 7155
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 CH-1211 Geneve 23                   |

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:31:44 -0800 (PST)

If you note a few lines below the comments you quoted, Pine does
support the MAILCAPS environment variable, as specified in RFC1524, to
override the default path.  I don't forsee going beyond that in future
releases...

|\ |  |\/|  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 Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Alessandro MIOTTO wrote:

> Errors-To: [email-masked]
> Sender: [email-masked]
> Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:12:33 +0100 (MET)
> From: Alessandro MIOTTO <[email-masked]>
> X-Sender: miotto@ues7
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: standard path for mailcap files: is it going to stay?
> Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91b.960124210909.1159O-100000@ues7>
>

---

From: Lea <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 17:12:05 -0700 (MST)

I have a client with a list of 300+ addresses, not in Pine addressbook 
format, that he wants to send a single message to.  In addition, he wants 
the list to be in blind-carbon format so that recipients do not have to 
wade through screenfuls of addresses before getting to the message.  The 
list, as it's formatted right now, would probably work fine if I could 
get it into the Bcc: field, but I haven't yet successfully done that...
Is there a way to read a file in to a Compose header field, and if so, 
how do you do that?  
Because of the size of the list editting would probably be almost as bad 
as entering the addresses individually into the addressbook (this is NOT 
a user who could ably use something like vi or emacs).
Any ideas gratefully accepted...

Lea

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