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From: montnaro@sprite.steinmetz (Skip Montanaro)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,comp.mail.headers,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: GNU Emacs vs. sendmail - battle of the titans
Message-ID: <8013@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Nov-87 15:48:30 EST
Article-I.D.: steinmet.8013
Posted: Mon Nov 30 15:48:30 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Dec-87 06:13:50 EST
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: montanaro@ge-crd.arpa (Skip Montanaro)
Distribution: na
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 24
Keywords: GNU Emacs, sendmail
Summary: From vs. From:, which is better?
Xref: mnetor comp.emacs:2463 comp.mail.headers:224 comp.unix.wizards:5700

Internet mail to our local network of Suns goes through a VMS VAX which adds
a little something extra to return addresses. For instance, zip@zap.domain is
transformed into zip%zap.domain.tcpip@csbvax.steinmetz. Undoing this in the
sendmail.cf file is pretty easy, but sendmail only generates a From field in
the correct format, it doesn't rewrite the From: field. On the other hand,
GNU Emacs discards the From field (in rmail-nuke-pinhead-header, I believe),
preferring to display the From: field, which defeats my attempts at making
mail headers more readable (and useful to the mail software running on our
Suns).

I can patch the rmail.el code to pay attention to From, however, the business
of which field (From or From:) is better, preferable, or more authoritative
has always been somewhat perplexing to me, and I'd like to get it straight
before butchering things. What's the straight dope? Can I make sendmail
rewrite the From: field? Can somebody from the Free Software Foundation
explain rmail's behavior? 

I imagine this is either old hat or uninteresting to most readers of these
groups, so reply directly to me and I will summarize if there is enough
interest. 

Thanks,

Skip (montanaro@ge-crd.arpa or uunet!steinmetz!sprite!montanaro)