Here's a patch to get rid of extra Re:'s around the beginning of the subject line. I don't know whether this replaces too aggressively or not (I'm testing it on a largish mailing list). Probably not. Another question is that should we have

 Re: PREFIX .*

or PREFIX Re: .*

in replies. I'd maybe favor the latter (this is also what the patch implements).

*** maillist.py Thu Apr 16 18:38:02 1998 --- maillist.py~ Sun Apr 12 07:34:01 1998

*** 747,763 **** prefix = self.subject_prefix if not subj: msg.SetHeader('Subject', '%s(no subject)' % prefix) ! else: ! if re.match("(re:? *)*" + re.escape(prefix), subj, re.I): ! # The subject prefix is there already, possibly with some Re:'s. ! # Take the extra Re:'s away, put one behind prefix. ! prefix_mess_rx=re.compile('^(re:? *)*' + ! re.escape(prefix) + '(re:? *)*', re.I) ! subj=re.sub(prefix_mess_rx, prefix + 'Re: ', subj) ! else: ! # No prefix yet. ! subj=prefix+subj ! msg.SetHeader('Subject', subj)

    if self.digestable:
        self.SaveForDigest(msg)

--- 747,755 ---- prefix = self.subject_prefix if not subj: msg.SetHeader('Subject', '%s(no subject)' % prefix) ! elif not re.match("(re:? *)?" + re.escape(self.subject_prefix), ! subj, re.I): ! msg.SetHeader('Subject', '%s%s' % (prefix, subj))

    if self.digestable:
        self.SaveForDigest(msg)