Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: <No subject given>

Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:23:39 -0400
From: Herbert H Gottlieb <herbgottlieb@JUNO.COM>

The message below is unreadable. Can somone explain why it
came out like this?

The message is in MIME format with two parts: plain text (7-bit
ASCII) and HTML (which is also written in 7-bit ASCII). In order
to read and follow this explanation, you may need to view it in a
plain text editor -- not an email app or word processor.

On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 08:51:42 -0600 "James H. Head"
<HeadJH.dfp@USAFA.AF.MIL> writes:
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

This is the tag line that tells a MIME-aware email app that what
follows is MIME-encoded. MIME stands for Multiple Internet Mail
Extensions.

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01BE84C1.B05EF400
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

This is the first MIME header, telling the app how the section is
MIME- encoded. In this case, it's essentially saying it isn't.
Let me know if you want a line-by-line parse.

SET PHYS-L NOMIME

This is the content of the first section. It's a command to the
LISTSERV program that runs PHYS-L not to send any MIME-encoded
messages to the sender of the command. Unfortunately it was sent
to the list address instead of the listserv address. Also it was
MIME-encoded. Some listservs do not read MIME and will ignore it
completely. Others will at least issue an error telling you they
didn't like something about your message.


------=_NextPart_000_0001_01BE84C1.B05EF400
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

This is the header for the second part. It says that what
follows is MIME-encoded in HTML.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">

This is almost a standard HTML header. The =3D are 7-bit
representations of an 8-bit (high bit) ASCII character that is
nonstandard among different character sets or code pages, as are
all 8-bit characters in fact. This particular artifact is
commonly seen when a word processor is used to prepare email.



<META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=3DGENERATOR>

MSHTML means "blame Microsoft for this."

</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV>
<P>SET PHYS-L <SPAN class=3D917302614-12041999><FONT color=3D#000000
=
face=3DArial=20
size=3D3>NOMIME</FONT></SPAN></P></DIV>

This is the same body text as before, now confusingly decorated
with a bunch of extraneous HTML font, size, and color settings,
and with a completely useless SPAN tag for further obfuscation.

</BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01BE84C1.B05EF400--

This is the MIME-encoding header for the third part. Since
nothing MIME is on the following line, that means "end of message."
MIME-aware email apps can be set to take specific actions upon
opening a MIME-encoded message, with different actions for each
different MIME-type. For example, it could be set to ignore plain
text if HTML is available.
If the email app is not MIME-aware, it may or may not show
anything at all. The best ones will show you every character that
was part of the original message. This at least gives you the
option of wading through the muck to see if there's anything there.
In this one, there wasn't. But it does make a handy example.

---------------------------------------------
Phil Parker pparker@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
Random quote for this second:
Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.