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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!idi!t12tst!chip
From: chip@t12tst.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal)
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Subject: "From:" lines violating standard
Message-ID: <274@t12tst.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Mar-85 16:00:44 EST
Article-I.D.: t12tst.274
Posted: Mon Mar  4 16:00:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 03:08:56 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Intel Microprocessor Mfg, Santa Clara
Lines: 48

There are several people out there who are using "From:" lines which
violate the USENET standard.  It appears to me that the number of violators
has been increasing over the past Ponths.  Unfortunately, these violations
cause my mailer program to break.  (Silly me...trying to base an algorithm
around a standard.)  Anyway, portions of the standard document (by Mark
Horton) which describe this problem are quoted below:

    > 2.1.3  From
    > 
    > The From line contains the electronic mailing address  of  the person who
    > sent the message, in the ARPA internet syntax.  It may optionally also
    > contain the  full name  of  the person, in parentheses, after the
    > electronic address.....
    > 
    > Either the full name is omitted, or it appears in parentheses after the
    > electronic address  of  the person posting the article, or it appears
    > before an electronic address enclosed in  angle brackets.  Thus, the
    > three permissible forms are:
    > 
    >     From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP
    >     From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
    >     From: Mark Horton 
    > 
    > Full names may contain any printing ASCII characters  from space through
    > tilde, with the exceptions that they may not contain parentheses ``(''
    > or  ``)'',  or  angle  brackets ``<''  or ``>''.

I did a 'grep' on all the "From:" lines in net.unix.  The ones which used
angle brackets (names changed to protect...) and my comments are as follows:

    Correct "From" fields:
	From: John Q Public 
	From: John Q Public 

    Illegal "From" fields:
	From: John Q Public (SC4-455) 	  parentheses in name
	From: jqp@bigvax.ARPA (John Q Public )	  angle brackets in name

Am I interpreting the standard correctly?  If so, is there reason why the
sites which violate the convention need to do so?  On the other hand, does
the standards document (and my mailer) need to be changed?  Does anybody
else but me care about this?  (And what about Naomi?)


-- 

Chip Rosenthal, Intel/Santa Clara, (408) 496-7651
{cbosgd,idi,intelca,icalqa,kremvax,qubix} ! {t4test,t12tst} ! {chip,news}