Re: [bug-mailutils] Is this a Bug? Readmsg Omits From Line

[Neil R. Ormos]

Sergey Poznyakoff wrote:
> Neil R. Ormos <address@hidden> wrote:

> > In at least one historical version of readmsg,
> > the -h option flag causes readmsg to copy the
> > "^From .*" line to the output, as does the -w
> > "From_" option.  By the "^From .*" line I mean
> > the line that signals the start of a new
> > message in an mbox-format mailbox file, not the
> > From: header line.

> It is due to the basic differences between MU
> implementation of readmsg and other versions.
> First of all, MU readmsg is able to process
> mailboxes of different formats.  All of them,
> except UNIX mailboxes, do not contain 'From '
> line.  Secondly, -w is said to select *headers*
> from the message, and the 'From ' marker in a
> UNIX mailbox is not a header at all.

> > I don't know whether this is intended behavior
> > or a bug.  The manual page does not specify
> > whether the "^From .*" line is supposed to be
> > copied to the output

> Mailutils readmsg was planned as a full-fledged
> replacement for the elm implementation.  From
> this point of view, it surely must support -w
> From_ notation (whenever it is possible).

1.  Thank you for the quick response and for the
    patch to fix the -w option.

2.  I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but what
    about the -h option?  The elm implementation
    of readmsg also copies the 'From ' marker if
    the -h option is supplied.  If Mailutils
    readmsg is intended to be a superset of elm
    readmsg, users may reasonably expect the -h
    option to duplicate the behavior of the elm
    implementation when the user desires to
    extract a verbatim copy of specified messages.

    I suppose that a reasonable workaround for
    extracting a verbatim copy of specified
    messages is to use an appropriate argument to
    -w, specifically -w 'From_ \' .  I have no
    idea why this works, but it does seem to copy
    the message verbatim, including the 'From '
    marker and all the headers.

    I would have thought that
      -w 'From_ a b c d ...' etc.
    should also work, and it mostly does, but some
    non-alpha characters are handled incorrectly.
    I have never seen mail headers start with a
    non-alpha character, but the RFCs apparently
    allow it; there appear to be 93 or so
    characters that can begin a header field name,
    although the alphas are case-folded, so only
    67 need be specified.  Including " or ' in the
    argument to -w provokes a segfault. Including
    ! in the argument appears to artificially
    terminate the list; anything thereafter is
    ignored.

> The enclosed patch adds the `-w From_'
> functionality.  When there is no `From ' marker
> (e.g. when reading a Maildir folder), readmsg
> will attempt to construct one from the available
> data.  Notice that this may not always be
> possible.

> I will commit the improved version of this patch
> later.

Thanks again.

Best regards,

--Neil Ormos