I am transitioning from heirloom mailx to s-mailx. I have been using
s-mailx version 14.8 as shipped with Debian stretch. But I recently
tried a snapshot of the current 14.9 development, and there are a
bunch of incompatibilities. Errors listed below, but I see at least
this set of problems:
- The # character is no longer interpreted as a comment marker (from
# to end of line). Instead, there is a # command. This behavior
is documented but not useful.
- Software is bleating about ! in alias names, but these are not
aliases, they are alternates. It seems to alternate complaining
about aliases and alternates.
- The ! character ought to be acceptable in alternates. Usenet
lives, and I have no desire to destroy my history of
alternates---I'm sure I still have archived mail that uses those
alternates.
- Software bleats about invalid alias names if the aliases contain /
or ) characters. The restrictions are documented, but they seem
gratuitous.
- s-nail doesn't like Latin-1 characters in alias names. This
position is defensible. However, it also complains about UTF-8
alphanumeric characters in alias names. This position is
indefensible.
If I were king, I would request
A. Any # that is preceded by whitespace marks a comment to the end of
the line.
B. Any non-whitespace character should be acceptable in an alias
name.
There are many other ways to deal with the alias issue, but choice B
allows one to deal with UTF-8 relatively easily.
Norman
Sample lines from my .mailrc:
set replyall # doesn't work on cs
ignore via message-id status received
set editheaders # s-nail
alias björn-von-sydow [email protected]
alternates mailrus!Princeton.EDU!nr idacrd!princeton!nr
Error messages from my full .mailrc (which I'm not posting to the list):
s-nail: Variable is read-only: #
s-nail: Variable name with control character ignored: doesnt work on cs
s-nail: Variable is read-only: #
s-nail: mailrus!Princeton.EDU!nr is an invalid alias name
s-nail: Invalid `alternates' argument: mailrus!Princeton.EDU!nr
s-nail: idacrd!princeton!nr is an invalid alias name
s-nail: Invalid `alternates' argument: idacrd!princeton!nr
s-nail: rutgers!hpsemc.cup.hp.com!princeton!nr is an invalid alias name
s-nail: Invalid `alternates' argument: rutgers!hpsemc.cup.hp.com!princeton!nr
s-nail: surya!att!princeton!nr is an invalid alias name
s-nail: Invalid `alternates' argument: surya!att!princeton!nr
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: amelio-v�zquez
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: j�rgen-h�tzel
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: christian-k�stner
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: 'rudy-service)'
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: tufts/celt
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: jonas-tr�mper
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: bj�rn-von-sydow
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: pierre-malo-deni�lou
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: j�r�me-vouillon
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: amazon/web
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: vilhelm-sj�berg
s-nail: Not a valid alias name: françois-pottier
