Avoiding expansion of mail's metacharacters

[Joel West]

> There's an obvious and easy way to fix this problem.
> 
> Put ALL the information in the input file!
> 
> The only information that needs to go over the uucp link is "run this
> program on this input file".  No argv.  The shell is happy to
> deal with that, and the program is free to place any interpretation 
> on the input file.

This won't always work.  Suppose you've got a message
	To: ihnp4!cbosgd!bill, decvax!decwrl!june, sdcsvax!sdcc3!george,
	    ucbvax!ucbfunky!ellen

When ihnp4 gets this message, what should it conclude?  That it should
only try to deliver the copy to "ihnp4..."?  Even if it has
direct paths to sdcsvax and ucbvax?  Or should it just try to deliver
to everyone?

Of course, if I write just 
	To: ihnp4!bill
on my home site (gould9), it will get there because of a smart
pathalias mailer.  This mailer does not rewrite the mail headers,
only change the UUX machine routing list.

Another example is blind carbon copies.  A really smart mailer will
distribute two copies of the message, one with the "bcc" line in the
text for the "bcc" recipients; the other with "bcc" omitted for
everyone else.  However, most mailers seem to leave the "bcc" line
out for all users, which makes it impossible to deduce in which direction
the message is heading.

Finally, at least some mailers do not expand a mailing list in the
"To:" line but leave it as is (I think this is good).  This means
that the message
	To: mac-users at sdcsvax.UUCP
can only be decoded by the explicit name expansion done at the original
host site, which was carried in the delivery instructions (either via uux 
or SMTP.)

It's actually a lot easier to write a mailer that doesn't require explicit 
delivery instructions, but just looks at the contents of the message.
However, at this point, that approach just won't cut it.


	Joel West	CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego)
	{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww
	jww at SDCSVAX.ARPA