Subject: RE: history of using a comment for display-name?

From: "Larry Osterman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 20:57:12 -0800

And then there's my old friend (used by a popular client at one point)

From: Foo@domain (Return Reciept Requested)

And if anyone cares (and probably nobody does), this is why Microsoft
Exchange explicitly ignores the "names in comments" convention - Before
we shipped Exchange 4.0 we promoted the comment field to the "phrase"
(if none was given) but one of our customers was using the
"RRR-in-a-comment" client, so we pulled the functionality).

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 8:39 AM
To: Maynard Kang
Cc: Keith Moore; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: history of using a comment for display-name? 

> I guess as a developer of e-mail software I find it mildly irritating
that
> I've always had to write code to support both the "phrase route-addr"
and
> "addr-spec (comments)" formats in e-mail headers. You can imagine the
> problem getting worse when dealing with non-ASCII in headers.. 

I have had the same irritation for mail software that I write
(even though it's not for public consumption, at least not yet)
I try to find a name in either the phrase or a following comment, 
and naturally I decode encoded-words.  I also try to deal with
extra quotes, untagged 8-bit characters (guessing whether they're
utf8, iso-2022-*, or something else), and phrases which are
entirely redundant with the address.

(so I translate each of the following:

"foo" <foo@domain> 
"'foo'" <foo@domain>
"foo@domain" <foo@domain>
"'foo@domain'" <foo@domain>

to simply 

<foo@domain>

it's a major pain, but the resulting display is a lot easier to read)

Most mail client these days seem to generate phrase rather than comment,

but this doesn't help someone writing a new mail reader.  Mail readers
may have to deal with messages that are decades old, so they end up 
needing to understand old conventions long after they are no longer 
generated.  

Keith

---

From: Sam Roberts <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 00:44:47 -0500

> "RRR-in-a-comment" client, so we pulled the functionality).

I care, I just implemented the same thing 3 hours ago!

Should I back out my changes? Is it really that common? Is it mostly a
problem for clients that hide the email address from you, and just show
the display-name if it's present?

Sam

-- 
Sam Roberts <[email-masked]> (http://www.emyr.net/Sam)

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:36:59 -0500

> Should I back out my changes? Is it really that common?

If memory serves, it's generated by one particular flavor of X.400 gateway.
Personally, I'd just add a check for "Return Receipt Requested" and
refuse to display *that* if it appears in a comment.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 12:09:52 -0500

>>>>> "Larry" == Larry Osterman <[email-masked]> writes:
    Larry> And then there's my old friend (used by a popular client at one point)

    Larry> From: Foo@domain (Return Reciept Requested)

  I've never heard of this.

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