Subject: From or From: ?

From: [email-masked] (Zhiliang Hu)
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 15:30:05 +1000

I think this is a quite common problem:

Usually procmail picks up "From  " line (the top line in mail header)
but not the "From: " line as the reply address.   In real situations,
very often the "From " line shows a mail carrier/forwarder/mirror list,
not the sender.  I wonder is there anyway one can do to make changes
in .procmailrc so reply is directed to "From: " field (the sender), not
"From  " field? ...

In fact replying to "From  " may cause mail loops since this often is
the address handling network mails and has auto-reply functions.

I am looking forward to solutions to this problem!

Zhiliang

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From: [email-masked] (David W. Tamkin)
Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 15:40:51 -0600 (CST)

Zhiliang Hu wrote,

| Usually procmail picks up "From  " line (the top line in mail header)
| but not the "From: " line as the reply address.   In real situations,
| very often the "From " line shows a mail carrier/forwarder/mirror list,
| not the sender.  I wonder is there anyway one can do to make changes
| in .procmailrc so reply is directed to "From: " field (the sender), not
| "From  " field? ...

Procmail picks up neither: I think you mean formail -r.

That was an error in the weight table several versions ago: both formail -r
and formail -rt gave too much priority to From_.  Stephen fixed it somewhere
along in the development of version 3.06.

| I am looking forward to solutions to this problem!

First suggestion: upgrade to formail 3.10 (and to procmail 3.10 and lockfile
3.10 while you're at it).

Second suggestion -- untested: try

      formail -I 'From ' -r
or
      formail -I 'From ' -rt

That might prevent formail from using the From_ address.  I can't test it
because I don't have an old version of formail here.

David W. Tamkin  Box 3284  Skokie, Illinois  60076-6284
[email-masked]    MCI Mail: 426-1818   +1 312 714 5610