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Re: space required in aliases ?



[somewhat condensed quoting]
> I just noticed that the new zmailer (2.99.49p8) I installed silently
> skips alias db entries that do not have a space between the colon and
> the " mark, as in:
>    dsp-update:"|/...."
> (this gives a 'no such local user')
>    dsp-update: "|/...."
> this works fine.
>
> Is this intended behavior ?

	Yes and no.

	The responsible code fragment is as this:
--------------	
s = skip821address(t);

/* We [s] are now at the white-space -- possibly the last
   char of the line prefix is a double-colon (:) */
if (s > t) {
	if (s[-1] == ':') 	s[-1] = 0;
	else if (s[0] != 0)	*s++ = 0;	/* Zero-terminate the key,
						   scan for input */
}
/* Scan forward for additional data start */
while (*s && (*s == '\t' || *s == ' ')) ++s;
--------------	

	Basically the  skip821address()  is a bit too simple-minded
	scanner.  It does not detect "invalid" syntax objects quite
	the same as SMTP-server does, for example.

	The need for that scanner is to scan over strings containing
	embedded white-space in the recipient specification entries
	at the transport agents.

	I need to revise things a bit, write a new scanner perhaps,
	to be able to stop at unquoted colon, like seems to be the
	custom at the aliases files.

	All of the examples tend to show format:
		tag:  value,value2,value...
	but reading Costas&Allman tells me differently;
	also these should be valid:

		tag : value,...
		tag:value,...
		tag :
			value,...

	(ok, perhaps not quite the last, but propably it can be supported too.)

> --J.

	/Matti Aarnio