From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Simon Josefsson Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: RMAIL bails out with coding-system-error Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 17:11:50 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1020611717 14104 127.0.0.1 (5 May 2002 15:15:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 15:15:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: David Kuehling , rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, pmr@pajato.com Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 174NjJ-0003fN-00 for ; Sun, 05 May 2002 17:15:17 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 174Nq2-0002XO-00 for ; Sun, 05 May 2002 17:22:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 174NjB-0004wX-00; Sun, 05 May 2002 11:15:09 -0400 Original-Received: from 178.230.13.217.in-addr.dgcsystems.net ([217.13.230.178] helo=yxa.extundo.com) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 174NgL-0004pW-00; Sun, 05 May 2002 11:12:14 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost.localdomain (yxa.extundo.com [217.13.230.178]) (authenticated bits=0) by yxa.extundo.com (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g45FC1Q4000818; Sun, 5 May 2002 17:12:01 +0200 Original-To: Eli Zaretskii In-Reply-To: (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Sun, 5 May 2002 16:45:31 +0300 (IDT)") Mail-Copies-To: nobody Original-Lines: 56 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) XEmacs/21.4 (Economic Science, i686-pc-linux) Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:3604 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:3604 Eli Zaretskii writes: > On Sun, 5 May 2002, Simon Josefsson wrote: > >> Is this X-Coding-System header actually used by RMAIL for anything? > > Yes, it is used to set the value of buffer-file-coding-system when you > read the same message later. Without this, RMAIL would have to > repeatedly decode messages each time you display it; this would be a > nuisance with long messages. > > In addition, recording an encoding allows features like > rmail-redecode-body, that lets users override bogus MIME headers. I wasn't clear, I meant: Is it used for anything upon receiving a message with that header from the network via email? Using it internally after receiving the message is OK, I think. >> I think the header is a very bad idea and it should be removed. There >> is a standard for interchanging non-ASCII data using email, and it is >> called MIME. Inventing something new that is specific to emacs (and >> can even depend on which additional packages are installed..) is a >> perfect method to cause problems for users and make people reject the >> entire software because it doesn't follow standards. > > IIRC, the X-Coding-System header is only written to the BABYL-formatted > files Emacs keeps for itself, and then only in the summary part. What > kinds of problems do you envision with this, given that headers beginning > with "X-" can be used by applications for their own purposes? None. I thought RMAIL decided how to display an incoming email depending on the X-Coding-System header. This is what would cause problems. Of course, RMAIL should probably make sure that X-Coding-System is removed when forwarding messages, so other RMAIL instances isn't confused. Or at least remove it on incoming messages before adding the new header locally. > However, I'm not saying that this is the only possible way of recording > the message encoding. If there are more standard methods that can > support the same features, we could consider switching to them. For internal purposes, whatever works is OK. Switching to MIME for the internal representation seems like work with little gain. >> Gnus provides >> two supposedly standalone packages called Message and Emacs MIME which >> provides MIME encoding and decoding, can't RMAIL use them? > > The difference between RMAIL and Gnus is that RMAIL stores only the > decoded messages. It doesn't keep the undecoded copy around. But I > don't know if this should prevent the change of the kind you suggest. Ok. I misunderstood the purposes of the header.