Re: [Bug-mit-scheme] imail issues with quoted human names

[Taylor R Campbell]

   Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:15:55 -0400
   From: Julie Sussman <address@hidden>

   I put this into my .mailrc as a simple test because lists in .mailrc
   with names in this format (which I found, empirically, to be a good
   format for emacs mail) were failing.

   alias myself "Julie E. M. Sussman <address@hidden>"

Unfortunately, the mailrc file is a historical mess.  Various mailers
interpret it in different ways, and GNU Emacs's documentation is
inconsistent with its implementation.  For instance, I quote from the
GNU Emacs manual:

\begin{quotation}
Addresses specified in this way should use doublequotes around an
entire address when the address contains spaces.  But you need not
include doublequotes around parts of the address, such as the person's
full name.  Emacs puts them in if they are needed.  For example,

     alias chief-torturer "George W. Bush <address@hidden>"

is correct in `.mailrc'.  Emacs will insert the address as `"George W.
Bush" <address@hidden>'.
\end{quotation}

GNU Emacs doesn't do this, though; it inserts the address as `George
W. Bush <address@hidden>' (which is OK according to RFC 2822, but
it confuses some mailers).

So, while Edwin's behaviour for the mailrc file is definitely
suboptimal, it's not clear to me how to interpret mailrc files well,
and you can work around it by putting

(define-mail-alias "myself"
  '("\"Julie E. M. Sussman\" <address@hidden>"))

in your .edwin file.  GNU Emacs's `define-mail-alias' is subtly
different, unfortunately -- its second argument is a string of
comma-separated addresses, rather than a list of strings --, so that
you can't share an initialization file between Emacs and Edwin
(without some helper routines in one or the other of the
initialization files).

If you have a suggestion for how to interpret mailrc files better, I'm
all ears, but before changing what Edwin already does, I'd like to be
sure that the interpretation is clear and well-justified.

   Furthermore 'reply' in imail to a message containing people's names
   works (it finds the e-mail addresses), but the names themselves are
   dropped.

Chris may have had a reason for this, in which case he should speak
up.  Until then, I've checked in a relatively simple-minded change
that retains the names.  It is a little more elaborate than a single
redefinition you can just C-x C-e and be done with, however.