[Mailman-Users] header/footer attachments

[Mark Sapiro]

Christopher Adams wrote:

>I am trying to verify that this is normal behavior for Mailman. I have
>been doing this for a number of years and never
>realized this. According to a previous post to the list:
>
>>Are you saying that the original posts to the list contain attachments
>>that go to the list? If so, the list header and footer will always be
>>added as separate MIME parts (attachments).
>
>I interpret this to mean that ANY message with an attachment, sent to
>a list that has header and footers appended, will
>put the footer and header into an attachment, along with the original
>attachment.
>
>I would like to verify that this is true before I pass the information
>on to list owners.


Attachment is a very vague word in this context. What happens to list
headers and footers depends on the MIME structure of the message. Most
messages that have what are normally called 'attachments' have a main
MIME type of multipart/mixed. For this type of message, Mailman will
add the header by inserting it in a text/plain sub-part as the first
sub-part of the multipart/mixed message and will add the footer by
inserting it in a text/plain sub-part as the last sub-part of the
multipart/mixed message.

It will not add the header and footer to the 'attachment'. Whether the
header and footer appear as inline text along with the 'message body'
or as separate attachments is entirely a function of the MUA used to
view the message.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan