UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[İsmail Dönmez]

Hi,

This is a very old problem for me at least 2-3 years. But since rmail
got active development again. Here goes the bug report. My name in
/etc/passwd is defined as:

cartman:x:1000:1000:İsmail Dönmez,,,:/home/cartman:/bin/zsh

Now in emacs when I do C-x m , I see the following:

From: "=?utf-8?Q?=C4=B0smail_D=C3=B6nmez?=" <cartman@uzaklarda>
To:
Subject:
--text follows this line--


So the name is pretty much garbage now. Is this somehow expected or is it a bug?

Regards,
ismail

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:16:01 +0200
> From: =?UTF-8?B?xLBzbWFpbCBEw7ZubWV6?= <ismail@namtrac.org>
> 
> cartman:x:1000:1000:İsmail Dönmez,,,:/home/cartman:/bin/zsh
> 
> Now in emacs when I do C-x m , I see the following:
> 
> From: "=?utf-8?Q?=C4=B0smail_D=C3=B6nmez?=" <cartman@uzaklarda>
> To:
> Subject:
> --text follows this line--
> 
> 
> So the name is pretty much garbage now. Is this somehow expected or is it a bug?

That's not garbage, that's how non-ASCII characters in email addresses
need to be encoded.

The problem is that mail transport does not allow (or at least didn't
allow in the past) non-ASCII characters in any of the mail headers,
because various mail servers need to look at the headers.  So Emacs
encodes the non-ASCII characters in quoted-printable encoding.

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Kevin Rodgers]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:16:01 +0200
>> From: =?UTF-8?B?xLBzbWFpbCBEw7ZubWV6?= <ismail@namtrac.org>
>>
>> cartman:x:1000:1000:İsmail Dönmez,,,:/home/cartman:/bin/zsh
>>
>> Now in emacs when I do C-x m , I see the following:
>>
>> From: "=?utf-8?Q?=C4=B0smail_D=C3=B6nmez?=" <cartman@uzaklarda>
>> To:
>> Subject:
>> --text follows this line--
>>
>>
>> So the name is pretty much garbage now. Is this somehow expected or is it a bug?
> 
> That's not garbage, that's how non-ASCII characters in email addresses
> need to be encoded.
> 
> The problem is that mail transport does not allow (or at least didn't
> allow in the past) non-ASCII characters in any of the mail headers,
> because various mail servers need to look at the headers.  So Emacs
> encodes the non-ASCII characters in quoted-printable encoding.

How about a tooltip or local help over the header content, to display
the decoded value?

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:35:19 -0700
> 
> How about a tooltip or local help over the header content, to display
> the decoded value?

Post 23.1, this would be a good idea.

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Richard M Stallman]

How about making sendmail-send-it do the encoding,
so that users can see the names in a readable form
in the *mail* buffer?

It would also be convenient for Rmail to automatically decode
all the header fields that it displays.

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[İsmail Dönmez]

Hi,

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Richard M Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> How about making sendmail-send-it do the encoding,
> so that users can see the names in a readable form
> in the *mail* buffer?
>
> It would also be convenient for Rmail to automatically decode
> all the header fields that it displays.

This would be the best option imho.

Regards,
ismail

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Stefan Monnier]

>> cartman:x:1000:1000:İsmail Dönmez,,,:/home/cartman:/bin/zsh
>> 
>> Now in emacs when I do C-x m , I see the following:
>> 
>> From: "=?utf-8?Q?=C4=B0smail_D=C3=B6nmez?=" <cartman@uzaklarda>
>> To:
>> Subject:
>> --text follows this line--
>> 
>> So the name is pretty much garbage now. Is this somehow expected or is it a bug?

> That's not garbage, that's how non-ASCII characters in email addresses
> need to be encoded.

Well, yes, but the encoding needs to happen when you send the message,
not before.


        Stefan

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Richard M Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> CC: ismail@namtrac.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:23:14 -0500
> 
> How about making sendmail-send-it do the encoding,
> so that users can see the names in a readable form
> in the *mail* buffer?

Not all mail backends in Emacs use sendmail-send-it, IIRC.

Re: UTF-8 problem with rmail From line

[Stefan Monnier]

>> How about making sendmail-send-it do the encoding,
>> so that users can see the names in a readable form
>> in the *mail* buffer?

> Not all mail backends in Emacs use sendmail-send-it, IIRC.

No, but they should all handle non-ASCII chars in the headers.


        Stefan