Hi Andreas! On 06/23/2008 05:00:01 AM Mon, Andreas Schmidt wrote:
Hi, lately I've received a number of mails with german umlaut-characters in the From-Header. Apparently, balsa can't handle these characters, so when I reply to these mails, I have to manually insert the To-Adress. Here are the relevant header lines as seen in the message source: ****** Return-Path: <boehne vermessung-XXX de> X-Status: Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v624) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Message-Id: <d99bcbb4f10abcdd22451a736c805ca7 vermessung-XXX de> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?MAB_Vermessung_Dipl.-Ing._Olaf_B=F6hne?= <boehne vermessung-XXX de> ****** This is the From-Header as seen when the mail is displayed: ****** From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?MAB_Vermessung_Dipl.-Ing._Olaf_B=F6hne?= ****** When I reply to such mails, this is what is put into the To-HEader: ****** To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?MAB_Vermessung_Dipl.-Ing._Olaf_B=F6hne?= ****** Of course, as the actual mail address in the From-Header is cut off, balsa doesn't know what to do with it. I guess "Return-Path" is a non- standard header (?) and they should use "Reply-To" instead. However, as I don't control the other party's mail server, I have to live with what I've got and it would be great if balsa could just fall back on using "Return-Path". Any chance to get that implemented? :-) BTW, I use the balsa version currently available in the repositories of Debian/Sid, which is 2.3.25-1. Best regards, Andreas
Balsa has no problem with accented characters in headers, provided they're properly encoded per RFC 2047. The '.' character isn't allowed in an encoded word in the From: header field. If you hand-edit that line to remove the '.'s, or encode them as "=2E", I believe the message will be displayed correctly.
Well...as you pasted it into the mail, the continuation line "<boehne vermessung-XXX de>" isn't prefixed with the required white space; if that's really how it's presented in the message, you'd also need to insert a space or a tab, for it to be recognized as a continuation.
The message certainly was mangled somewhere along the line! The Mime-Version: header field was somehow appended to the XStatus: field, so Balsa would also quite likely not recognize it as mime-structured.
As to using the Return-Path: field as a fall-back address for the reply: According to RFC 2821, it's the address to which error messages should be sent, and it's inserted by the SMTP server making the final delivery of the message. So it's quite possible for it to be different from the sender, and using it could well raise privacy issues. Having to find the correct address and enter it by hand is probably better--although having a correctly encoded From: field is best!
Best, Peter
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