GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 233275
Evolution ignores multiple addressees separated by ';'
Last modified: 2004-05-07 16:46:11 UTC
Description of Problem: If you type in several email addresses in the 'To:' block and separate the names with semi-colons (which is how Outlook shows them separated), Evolution ignores all but the first name. Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Compose New email 2. Type in multiple email addresses in the 'To:' block, delimited by semi-colons. 3. Send email, check the 'Sent' folder and notice that only the first name shows up in the 'To:' block! Actual Results: Email is only sent to the first person on the list. Expected Results: Email should be sent to all addressees! Also, why can't a space delimiter work as well? (A space exhibits the same bad behaviour as semi-colon, but I'm not sure if Outlook accepts a space delimiter.) How often does this happen? Always. Additional Information: In this case, Evolution sucks more than Outlook! Outlook accepts semi-colons!!
semi-colons have a special meaning in addresses please see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc0822.txt
Humph. From my reading, semi-colons are only interesting as a closing delimiter for a preceding colon. In other words, this: a@b.com;c@d.org;e@f.net is unambiguously parsable as a list of addresses delimited by semi-colons. Having used Outlook in the past (which accepts semi-colons as address delimiters), I find the behaviour of Evolution quite annoying. Also, you quote RFC822 in your reason for resolving this bug as invalid. But it's up to Evolution to send proper email, not the user! And if Evolution wishes to stay in strict adherence of the letter of the law, why doesn't it warn me that it can't parse the 'To:' field? Bad Evolution! I would have appreciated a warning that all but the first address in the 'To:' field was going to be thrown away, rather than silently dropped!
From the viewpoint of users, the bug is not very convenient to them. It is not very difficult to provide convenience foe them. Should we do with bug?
Created attachment 41822 [details] [review] patch 0.1
patch above works, but not very sure it can be regareded a compromise between users and RFC :)
the patch is wrong and we are not deviating from the specification.
*** bug 235589 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
My bug has been marked a dupe of this, but I'd like to add two things: 1. The RFC is for mail transport, not for mail clients. The mail client produces the mail for transport, so should be able to accept more delimiters. 2. The same problem applies if you enter a recipient's name after a COMMA,and then go back to enter the proper e-mail addresses later. They're gone. When would you do this? Drafts are for unfinished messages. You may "save as draft" to check an e-mail address. The e-mail shouldn't be parsed until the send stage.
Also, you can't just delete parts of people's email without warning them first.
*** bug 235274 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
although many users complain this bug, I think we can give a warning info to users about these invalid delimiters. others suggestions?
the place to change this is not the mailer, but rather in the addressbook's entry boxes that the mailer uses in the composer window.