Re: The escaped From bugaboo

> From [email protected]  Mon Jan 14 10:18:49 2013
> Subject: Re: The escaped From bugaboo
> From: LuKreme <[email protected]>
> Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:11:02 -0700
> To: "[email protected] Procmail" <[email protected]>
>
>
> On 13 Jan 2013, at 15:22 , Robert Bonomi <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
>
> >
> >> From: LuKreme <[email protected]> Subject: The escaped From bugaboo 
> >> Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:38:02 -0700 To: 
> >> "[email protected] Procmail" 
> >> <[email protected]>
> >>
> >>
> >> I got an email today with this paragraph in it:
> >>
> >> ***
> >> These new  post-Panamax  ships are the length of aircraft carriers.
> >>> From the waterline, they re 190 feet tall, or nearly twice the height
> >> of the Lincoln Memorial. The ships can carry as many as 12,000 
> >> containers, or about a million flat-screen TVs.
> >> ***
> >>
> >> As you can see, the "From" is escaped.
> >
> > RTFM applies. <grin>
>
> Hoisted on your own petard.

a) Improper usage.  <grin>

   It's _by_ not "on".

b) it is documented behavior.

> > This is _necessary_ for mbox-format messages.
>
> WHich is why I was sure to point out that messages were bing delivered to 
> maildir. There are no mbox files on the server. At all.

Immaterial and irrelevant.  Unfortunate, but accurate.

Procmail originates from the days when 'mbox-format' was the -only- mail
storage format.

Multiple storage format support was added much later.  '^From ' escaping
is done _long_before_ the 'delivery location' storage format is determined.
(More-or-less unavoidable, given the program's internal logic.)

This quirk[1] of procmail is well-known -- people have griped about it for
years (decades) -- and =nobody= has managed to come up with a 'fix' for
it.



[1] It's documented, Thus, per the classic IBM standard "it's a feature, not
    a bug."