From:	CSBVAX::CSBVAX::MRGATE::"SMTP::FRIDAY.A-T.COM::KVC" 13-MAR-1989 11:26
To:	MRGATE::"ARISIA::EVERHART"
Subj:	FWD: Infinite loop MAIL!


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Date: Fri, 10 Mar 89 10:49 PDT
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From: "Kevin V. Carosso" <@YMIR.BITNET:KVC%FRIDAY.A-T.COM@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: FWD: Infinite loop MAIL!
To: ipmdf@YMIR.BITNET
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>        Just a couple of days ago I noticed something strange.  When I try to
> send mail if I forget to put the " either at the beginning of the address or
> at the end of the address, MAIL gets in to a loop and doesn't come back with
> the CC prompt.  Is this a problem with mail or with PMDF?.  For yor informatio
   n,
> we are running PMDF V3.0 under VMS V5.0-2.

This is a bug in VMS MAIL.  It has been there since VMS V5 Field Test.  I did
QAR it during FT, but they probably didn't think it important enough to
bother with.

There is another bug in the MAIL address parser that is worse.  Addresses which
are entirely contained in quotes are completely ignored.  If they were handled
correctly it would be possible to use the undocumented (in VMS MAIL -- it is
mentioned in DECwindows MAIL) SET TRANSPORT command to set your default
transport to "IN%" so all addresses go to PMDF by default.  That would allow
you to simply type "user@host.domain" without the IN% at the front.  The
quotes are required because "@" is a special character to MAIL.   You can
SET TRANSPORT and then use addresses of the form HOST.DOMAIN::USER, but
that is discouraged by some because it may be confusing to users used to
RFC-822 addresses.

Both these bugs exist in DECwindows MAIL as well, probably because it shares
a lot of code with VMS MAIL.  Aside from that, however, PMDF works just fine
with DECwindows MAIL (I'm creating this message from DW MAIL right now).

        /Kevin Carosso                        kvc@friday.a-t.com
         Innosoft International Inc.          kvc@ymir.bitnet