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Date:      Sat, 27 Sep 2003 12:56:07 -0400
From:      Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To:        Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Message format *again*
Message-ID:  <3F75C127.3040409@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030927021722.GF16008@wantadilla.lemis.com>
References:  <20030926080458.8D277349379@sjtu.edu.cn> <20030926114849.GA70496@rot13.obsecurity.org> <20030926192638.GJ9910@localhost.Earthlink.net> <20030927021722.GF16008@wantadilla.lemis.com>

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Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
[ ... ]
> I don't see anything in the standards that defines this format, so I
> suppose the answer should be "yes".  On a more practical basis, I
> don't know of any UNIX-based MUA which treats this correctly, and none
> of the messages I looked at it had this attribute.  In addition, I
> can't see how "format=flowed" can distinguish between computer output
> (which should be quoted unchanged, possibly with very long lines) and
> text, which RFC 2822 recommends to be 78 characters or less.  It also
> makes it almost impossible to quote.

Netscape/Mozilla is the most common MUA which uses format=flowed.  Mozilla 
certainly meets the "UNIX-based MUA" requirement, as it is available as a 
FreeBSD port.  This message should be an example of that MIME content-type, and 
the raw ASCII representation should be fine for 80-column viewing.

Quoting email written in format=flowed should also be okay, although not 
perfect, since Mozilla sometimes has a habit of prepending a space before a 
quoted line inconsistently, resulting in output like:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Mask IP:port with Domain Name
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 11:46:20 -0400
From: Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To: John DeStefano <deesto@yahoo.com>
CC: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Message-id: <3EFC66CC.7030309@mac.com>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii

John DeStefano wrote:
 > Chuck Swiger wrote:
 >> There's no way to avoid the port number in the URL, then.  Consider
 >> switching to a provider that lets you host local services...
  >
 > Does that then nullify your previous recommendations?

Nope.  It just means that you can only get one of the two things you asked for.

 > Can you recommend any such providers?

Of dynamic DNS?  Yes: www.dyndns.org.

 > By hosting "local services", do you mean DNS?

No, I meant being able to run Apache on port 80.  You said you didn't want to
see IP or port number; the former can be solved by dynamic DNS, the latter can't
be solved if your ISP blocks port 80.
[ ... ]
------------------------------

Mozilla tries to special-case the reformatting of quoted text to avoid breaking 
quotation levels, but it displays "> " and " > " the same-- as a single colored 
vertical bar so it's not possible for a user to notice the issue during composition.

For a detailed review of various test cases, please consult:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199776

-- 
-Chuck



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