Re: [Nmh-workers] Dealing with missing From: header during send.

[Paul Fox]

jeffrey wrote:
 > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 13:09, Paul Vixie <address@hidden> wrote:
 > 
 > > On Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:01:04 -0500
 > > Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> wrote:
 > >
 > > > >Rather than guess, we should treat the absence of a From: header in
 > > > >an outgoing message as a configuration error and abort the send. This
 > > > >change makes the creation of a components file with a 'From:' header
 > > > >mandatory; the code that initializes the Mail/ folder should
 > > > >probably be extended to prompt for a default From address which is
 > > > >then used to create a minimal components file.
 > > >
 > > > So, what do people think of this idea?  This would be arguably the
 > > > most correct solution, but it would be a significant change from
 > > > the way nmh has behaved in the past.
 > >
 > > i think this is fine. nmh should gradually encourage people to make a
 > > few changes here and there.
 > >
 > >
 > If we are going to change the behavior in any significant way then we
 > should make it a major release (i.e. 2.0).

bear in mind that many people may not normally do their own builds --
i haven't needed to, for years now, thanks to debian/ubuntu
packaging.  if it's a big change, and configuring around it is
difficult (i don't think this one is, particularly), then a run-time
switch for backwards compatibility would be preferable to a build-time
switch.

(i just checked, and realized that i'd be affected -- i have scripts
that sometimes munge the draft to create a From: header based on current
folder, and i see by the way i wrote them that there's an assumption
that there's no such header by default.)

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 32.2 degrees)