email edit

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 03:07:00PM -0500, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 12:50:31PM -0500, Brian K. White wrote:
> [...]
> > > I wouldn't be surprised if you can have more than one @
> >
> > You can't.
> 
> Then why does <"foo at bar"@hvcomputer.com> work?


Well, RFC 2822 is pretty opaque in its choice of syntax, but that does
actually appear to be legal.

The same Berns steak offer applies, if you can find a production
mailbox with an at-sign in it's name -- that is, one that wasn't
created to win a steak dinner.  :-)

> > > You don't need even one .
> >
> > You do.
> 
> <nitpick>
>     username at localhost
> </nitpick>

I mention this below... well, ok, maybe not quite even this.

Is that a mailbox that will appear in a filePro database, though?  :-)

> > > then theres: network!hosta!hostb!hostc!user
> >
> > See above; find me a live example of an address like this, and I'll buy
> > you dinner at Berns.
> 
> Well, there's "likely to be found in the real world", and then there's
> "RFC compliant".

Yes, there is.  I don't feel the need to be 100.0% RFC 2822 compliant
in the environment in question; we're not trying to rewrite sendmail in
filePro.

> [...]
> > > The only correct way to validate an email address is to actually
> > > validate it. Which requires the machine running fp to have a working
> > > mta.
> >
> > That's the best way, but you can't really *validate* it, either; "VRFY"
> > only works on mailers run by Really Stupid Sysadmins.
> 
> Are we looking to "validate" the address, or simply verify that it is
> properly formed?

*I* was only concerned with form, not substance.  :-)

> [...]
> > > In the end, you _still_ can't really know because you have no control
> > > over the recipient mail servers.
> >
> > No, but we're only trying to trap typos.
> 
> Typos that cause malformed address can be caught.  Typos that cause
> a valid address, but which belongs to someone else, can only be
> caught by using "confirmed"/"verified" opt-in techniques.  And if
> you're going to confirm the address anyway, allowing malformed
> addresses through will (with few exceptions) not cause any problems.

True.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	"That's women for you; you divorce them, and 10 years later,
	  they stop having sex with you."  -- Jennifer Crusie; _Fast_Women_