Re: email address handling

From: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Aug 1, 2008, 20:11 UTC
Message-ID: <20080801131127.20b3acfd.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0808011253580.3277@nehalem.linux-foundation.org>

On Fri, 1 Aug 2008 12:56:44 -0700 (PDT) Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> 
> 
> On Fri, 1 Aug 2008, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > 
> > That's how I noticed it - copied, pasted, MTA barfed.
> > 
> > Converting a usable name+email-address into an unusable one seems ... unuseful.
> 
> Umm. Those signed-off ones weren't even _converted_ They were written by 
> people.

This was the Author: line.

Afaik that person doesn't send patches via git, and that this text by some means was transferred into git from an emailed patch.

So unless he explicitly typed a "From:" line (without quoting his name) into the top of his changelog, some piece of software somewhere has stripped the quotes when it was converting his name from the email headers into the git Author: line.

> Also, you seemed to miss the point that it's not a name+email-address.

I know exactly what it is.

> It's a name. Oh, and there's an email address too. But they aren't 
> connected. We often just print out the name *without* the email address. 
> Why should those things have to know about some totally irrelevant email 
> quoting rules? They weren't emails, didn't know about it, and didn't care.

Well, as I said, it's a minor point. It's just that converting something which _can_ be copied and pasted into an MUA into something which cannot seems... odd.

Most sane MUA's will omit the quotes if the name part does not need them, so simply retaining the quotes if they were originally there would be an OK thing to do.

So how serious is this issue?

Well, if all MUAs either generate synchronous error messages or will insert the quotes for you then not very serious at all.

If, however, there are MUA+MTA combinations which do _not_ inform about or correct the error then this failure to quote the name could cause people's emails to get lost altogether, which is a bit serious.

Also, _most_ git Author: lines _can_ be successfully copied-and-pasted into an MUA. The fact that a small minority of git Author: lines cannot be used this way is a bit dangerous.