Majordomo drops multi-line Subject:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Can you have multi-line subject lines? I didn't think that was
possible.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Can you have multi-line subject lines? I didn't think that was
possible.

Yes. This is the header of a mail you sent to -patches:

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Zdenek Kotala <Zdenek.Kotala@Sun.COM>
CC: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, pgsql-patches@postgresql.org
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 09:05:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in

Note the Subject is truncated w.r.t. the mail you were responding, which
had this:

From: Zdenek Kotala <Zdenek.Kotala@Sun.COM>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
Cc: pgsql-patches@postgresql.org, bruce@momjian.us
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:44:19 +0200
Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in postgresql.conf to -

See your sent-mail folder, you'll see that the message you actually sent
had something like this:

Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in
postgresql.conf to -

What happened with the second line? What I concluded has happened, from
observations on the other list, Majordomo removed it.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

On 23.08.2006, at 16:31 Uhr, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Can you have multi-line subject lines? I didn't think that was
possible.

Yes. This is the header of a mail you sent to -patches:

Aha? Subject is an "unstructured header field" and according to RFC
2822 [1]http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2822:

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----
2.2.1. Unstructured Header Field Bodies

Some field bodies in this standard are defined simply as
"unstructured" (which is specified below as any US-ASCII characters,
except for CR and LF) with no further restrictions. These are
referred to as unstructured field bodies. Semantically,
unstructured
field bodies are simply to be treated as a single line of characters
with no further processing (except for header "folding" and
"unfolding" as described in section 2.2.3).

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----

So they don't contain line feeds or carriage returns and so the can't
be multi-line. If a mail client sends multi line subjects it does
something against the RFC and I assume with that, it does something
wrong.

This is the theory in RFC 2822 as far as I understand it.

cug

[1]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2822

Guido Neitzer wrote:

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----
2.2.1. Unstructured Header Field Bodies

Some field bodies in this standard are defined simply as
"unstructured" (which is specified below as any US-ASCII characters,
except for CR and LF) with no further restrictions. These are
referred to as unstructured field bodies. Semantically,
unstructured
field bodies are simply to be treated as a single line of characters
with no further processing (except for header "folding" and
"unfolding" as described in section 2.2.3).

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----

So see what "folding" means. Section 2.2.3 says

2.2.3. Long Header Fields

Each header field is logically a single line of characters comprising
the field name, the colon, and the field body. For convenience
however, and to deal with the 998/78 character limitations per line,
the field body portion of a header field can be split into a multiple
line representation; this is called "folding". The general rule is
that wherever this standard allows for folding white space (not
simply WSP characters), a CRLF may be inserted before any WSP. For
example, the header field:

Subject: This is a test

can be represented as:

Subject: This
is a test

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

Guido Neitzer wrote:

So they don't contain line feeds or carriage returns and so the can't
be multi-line. If a mail client sends multi line subjects it does
something against the RFC and I assume with that, it does something wrong.

This is the theory in RFC 2822 as far as I understand it.

I think he referred to a long subject line being "folded" as per section
2.2.3 of rfc2822.

--
bkw

It most likely conforms strictly to <a
href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc822#page-21&quot;&gt;Rfc 822</a> which is
the standard, and mostly canonical, and allows for CR and LF but not the
two together (CRLF), if I'm reading it correctly:

text = <any CHAR, including bare ; => atoms, specials,
CR & bare LF, but NOT ; comments and
including CRLF> ; quoted-strings are
; NOT recognized.

optional-field =

/ "Message-ID" ":" msg-id
/ "Resent-Message-ID" ":" msg-id
/ "In-Reply-To" ":" *(phrase / msg-id)
/ "References" ":" *(phrase / msg-id)
/ "Keywords" ":" #phrase
/ "Subject" ":" *text
/ "Comments" ":" *text
/ "Encrypted" ":" 1#2word
/ extension-field ; To be defined
/ user-defined-field ; May be pre-empted

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Can you have multi-line subject lines? I didn't think that was
possible.

Yes. This is the header of a mail you sent to -patches:

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Zdenek Kotala <Zdenek.Kotala@Sun.COM>
CC: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, pgsql-patches@postgresql.org
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 09:05:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in

Note the Subject is truncated w.r.t. the mail you were responding, which
had this:

From: Zdenek Kotala <Zdenek.Kotala@Sun.COM>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
Cc: pgsql-patches@postgresql.org, bruce@momjian.us
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:44:19 +0200
Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in postgresql.conf to -

See your sent-mail folder, you'll see that the message you actually sent
had something like this:

Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in
postgresql.conf to -

What happened with the second line? What I concluded has happened, from
observations on the other list, Majordomo removed it.

--
erik jones <erik@myemma.com>
software development
emma(r)

On 23.08.2006, at 16:51 Uhr, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Guido Neitzer wrote:

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----
2.2.1. Unstructured Header Field Bodies

Some field bodies in this standard are defined simply as
"unstructured" (which is specified below as any US-ASCII
characters,
except for CR and LF) with no further restrictions. These are
referred to as unstructured field bodies. Semantically,
unstructured
field bodies are simply to be treated as a single line of
characters
with no further processing (except for header "folding" and
"unfolding" as described in section 2.2.3).

----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----

So see what "folding" means. Section 2.2.3 says

2.2.3. Long Header Fields

Each header field is logically a single line of characters
comprising
the field name, the colon, and the field body. For convenience
however, and to deal with the 998/78 character limitations per
line,
the field body portion of a header field can be split into a
multiple
line representation; this is called "folding". The general rule is
that wherever this standard allows for folding white space (not
simply WSP characters), a CRLF may be inserted before any WSP. For
example, the header field:

Interesting. Haven't seen that. Thanks for the hint. Not really
intuitive, but okay.

cug

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Can you have multi-line subject lines? I didn't think that was
possible.

Yes. This is the header of a mail you sent to -patches:

To further this:

RCPT TO: jd@lists.commandprompt.oc
m550 5.7.1 jd@lists.commandprompt.oc... Relaying denied. Proper
authentication required.
RCPT TO: jd@lists.commandprompt.com
250 2.1.5 jd@lists.commandprompt.com... Recipient ok
data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
Subject: asdf
asdfasdf

hello
.
250 2.0.0 k7NFEHfh005371 Message accepted for delivery
RCPT TO: jd@lists.commandprompt.com
503 5.0.0 Need MAIL before RCPT
MAIL FROM: linuxpoet@gmail.com
250 2.1.0 linuxpoet@gmail.com... Sender ok
RCPT TO: jd@lists.commandprompt.com
250 2.1.5 jd@lists.commandprompt.com... Recipient ok
data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
Subject: asdfasdfasdf
asdfasdfasdfaasdffasdfasdasdf

this is a test
.
250 2.0.0 k7NFEHfi005371 Message accepted for delivery

Both of these came through with proper multi line subjects.

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Is this fixable?

Even though multi-line Subject: is theoretically legal according to the
RFCs, it's certainly an awful idea; how many MUAs do you know that
provide more than one line to display the subject in a normal view?
So I don't really care if Majordomo truncates the subject --- I wouldn't
see the rest of it anyway.

regards, tom lane

Tom Lane wrote:

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

I noticed that Majordomo drops the second and subsequent lines of a
Subject: line in message before dispatching for some reason. It has
done this for some time; I noticed it some time ago in pgsql-es-ayuda
but I thought it may be a bug in my MUA. But I just saw it happened to
a mail from Bruce as well.

Is this fixable?

Even though multi-line Subject: is theoretically legal according to the
RFCs, it's certainly an awful idea; how many MUAs do you know that
provide more than one line to display the subject in a normal view?
So I don't really care if Majordomo truncates the subject --- I wouldn't
see the rest of it anyway.

Huh, but the MUA auto-unfolds it for view. Both mutt and Elm do that
fine -- the folding and unfolding. I would think exmh is pretty
thoroughly broken if it didn't.

We can do an experiment and send you a Cc'ed message through the list
and a copy to you directly. The direct copy should have the full
subject, and the list one would be truncated.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

Tom Lane wrote:

Even though multi-line Subject: is theoretically legal according to the
RFCs, it's certainly an awful idea; how many MUAs do you know that
provide more than one line to display the subject in a normal view?
So I don't really care if Majordomo truncates the subject --- I wouldn't
see the rest of it anyway.

Huh, but the MUA auto-unfolds it for view. Both mutt and Elm do that
fine -- the folding and unfolding. I would think exmh is pretty
thoroughly broken if it didn't.

Well, if I actually choose to read the message, sure I'll see all of it.
The point here is that you've got one line (and only about 50 characters
at that) to get my attention, and so I'm perfectly fine with list
software that, erm, strongly encourages brevity of Subject: headers.
If you're composing a paragraph it ought to be in the message body,
not the subject.

regards, tom lane

Tom Lane wrote:

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

Tom Lane wrote:

Even though multi-line Subject: is theoretically legal according to the
RFCs, it's certainly an awful idea; how many MUAs do you know that
provide more than one line to display the subject in a normal view?
So I don't really care if Majordomo truncates the subject --- I wouldn't
see the rest of it anyway.

Huh, but the MUA auto-unfolds it for view. Both mutt and Elm do that
fine -- the folding and unfolding. I would think exmh is pretty
thoroughly broken if it didn't.

Well, if I actually choose to read the message, sure I'll see all of it.
The point here is that you've got one line (and only about 50 characters
at that) to get my attention, and so I'm perfectly fine with list
software that, erm, strongly encourages brevity of Subject: headers.
If you're composing a paragraph it ought to be in the message body,
not the subject.

Have a look at how mutt displays the message index:

69 L Aug 23 Zdenek Kotala ( 37) Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in postgresql.conf to -
70 L Aug 23 Bruce Momjian ( 52) ->Re: [PATCHES] Allow commenting of variables in

Note that the rest of the second subject line could still use the same
space as the line above it.

I mostly don't use 80-line terminals to read mail anymore because
there's so much stuff that's too wide. Subjects have already less space
available because of those [FOOBAR] stuff that's prepended to it. (I
noticed a couple of days ago that you strip those. Maybe I should do
that too.)

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

Even though multi-line Subject: is theoretically legal according to the
RFCs, it's certainly an awful idea; how many MUAs do you know that
provide more than one line to display the subject in a normal view?
So I don't really care if Majordomo truncates the subject --- I wouldn't
see the rest of it anyway.

Well my MUA actually reads the new line and makes it a single line.

Joshua D. Drake

regards, tom lane

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--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

Based on this thread, and the fact that you are the first to have ever
noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one complaining about
it :)

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy@hub.org MSN . scrappy@hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy Skype: hub.org ICQ . 7615664

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

Based on this thread, and the fact that you are the first to have ever
noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one complaining
about it :)

Honestly, it may be time we start looking at mailman.

Joshua D. Drake

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy@hub.org MSN . scrappy@hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy Skype: hub.org ICQ . 7615664

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--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

Based on this thread, and the fact that you are the first to have ever
noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one complaining
about it :)

Honestly, it may be time we start looking at mailman.

Please don't, unless Majordomo is really broken and unfixed (i.e. there
isn't a newer version with the bug fixed). What version are we running?
May I assume we are running a rather obsolete version? Like the version
we are running of CVS, which doesn't support the usage of

LocalKeyword=PostgreSQL=CVSHeader
KeywordExpand=iPostgreSQL

in CVSROOT/config

which replaces the old, unsupported, broken hack of putting

tag=PostgreSQL=CVSHeader

in CVSROOT/options. I've been wanting to propose an upgrade to that as
well.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

Based on this thread, and the fact that you are the first to have ever
noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one complaining
about it :)

Honestly, it may be time we start looking at mailman.

Please don't, unless Majordomo is really broken and unfixed (i.e. there
isn't a newer version with the bug fixed). What version are we running?

From what I can tell Majordomo isn't even supported any longer.
Secondly we get some better management (not great but better) interfaces
with mailman.

Mailman is a supported, large, active, FOSS community project that is
battle tested in the current field much more so then Majordomo. Holding
on with a dying breaths to old software is silly.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

In any case I don't see any reason to let the broken software continue
to be broken. Surely there must be an updated version which corrects
this bug? A patch at least? I mean, I can't be the only one
complaining about it.

Based on this thread, and the fact that you are the first to have ever
noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one complaining
about it :)

Honestly, it may be time we start looking at mailman.

Please don't, unless Majordomo is really broken and unfixed (i.e. there
isn't a newer version with the bug fixed). What version are we running?

From what I can tell Majordomo isn't even supported any longer.
Secondly we get some better management (not great but better) interfaces
with mailman.

Mailman is a supported, large, active, FOSS community project that is
battle tested in the current field much more so then Majordomo. Holding
on with a dying breaths to old software is silly.

Can Mailman do moderation over email? If it can do that, then I'm all
for it. If it can't, which was the case last time I checked (more than
a year ago or two, I admit), then I repeat my plea that it's not done.
Moderation over www is a PITA. My MUA allows me to accept/reject a
message in a single keystroke. If I had to fetch a webpage any time I
wanted to approve a post I'd abandon the job pretty quickly.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

ever noticed/commented about it ... ya, you are the only one
complaining about it :)

Honestly, it may be time we start looking at mailman.

Please don't, unless Majordomo is really broken and unfixed (i.e.
there isn't a newer version with the bug fixed). What version

are we running?

From what I can tell Majordomo isn't even supported any longer.
Secondly we get some better management (not great but better)
interfaces with mailman.

Seriously, I think that's the first time anybody said anything good
about the mailman interfaces.... Just the stuff I have to do for the
pgFoundry lists (of which I have only *two*) is just so much pain. (who
came up with such a brilliant thing as
different-password-for-everything-you-do? It's just god-awful if you
have more than one list..)

If we're changing anyway, I think we should seriously consider Sympa,
IMHO. For one thing, it can store it's Config and userlists and stuf in
a PostgreSQL database, so if you're not happy with the interface, it's
fairly trivial to whack something else up. Or if you need to do batch
changes or something... I'm not advocating a change though - I'll stand
neutral on that - but *if* we're going to change...

//Magnus