[Mailman-Developers] prevent qp as qp routine broken

[Michael Heydekamp]

Hi Barry,

Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> to Michael Heydekamp on 24.01.04:

> On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 07:54, Michael Heydekamp wrote:

>> as Mailman's qp routine seems to be completely broken I'd like to
>> know how to prevent Mailman from qp'ing messages (for instance when
>> sending out subscribeack.txt) at all.

>> I don't see the benefit of qp'ing anyway but wouldn't mind if
>> Mailman would do it correctly.  But that's not the case ...

> Michael, can you please provide some detail?

Sure, but what about an answer to my question how to prevent qp'ing? ;-)

> Reproducible examples would help.

Simple - say we have the following lines in subscribeack.txt (German
text follows):

----------8<----------
1) Was Mailinglisten sind und wie man sie am besten und komfortabelsten
   in XP einrichtet und handhabt, ist ausführlich in der Online-Hilfe
   [...]
----------8<----------


When receiving the greeting message after subscribing to the list, the
users see the following in their MUAs instead:

----------8<----------
1) Was Mailinglisten sind und wie man sie am besten und
komfortabelsten
   in XP einrichtet und handhabt, ist ausführlich in der Online-Hilfe
   [...]
----------8<----------


Ugly, right?


There are two reasons for this:

1. Unnecessarily, Mailman wraps lines that are not longer than 76
   characters (note that the line in question is just 71 characters long
   and therefore Mailman wouldn't even need to touch it).

2. When Mailman wraps, it simply "forgets" to use soft line breaks which
   would have to look like this:

----------8<----------
1) Was Mailinglisten sind und wie man sie am besten und =
komfortabelsten
   in XP einrichtet und handhabt, ist ausf=FChrlich in der Online-Hilfe
   [...]
----------8<----------

Please note the "=" at the end of the first line.  Only then every
qp-aware MUA would be able to restore the original line.

The second reason is the more important one.  Mailman may wrap even at
pos 40 if it wants to but it *has* to use soft line breaks then.  For
more details see 6.7. of RFC2045.

Furthermore I'm not sure if Mailman calculates the line length correctly
at all (would have to run another test to be sure).  My impression is
that characters are counted before being qp'd (because if they would be
counted after being qp'd, also the line starting with "in XP einrichtet"
should be wrapped, given that the same logic is applied to the line).

Anyway, I see no reason for qp'ing at all and to avoid the ugly output
above, I'd like to get rid of it.

Just for demonstration purposes, I'm writing this last paragraph of the message in one long line and send it out qp'd. Look at the raw format to see how qp should work.  You MUA should restore it to one long line (and afterwards internally wrap it again for display purposes).


        Michael