[Mailman-Users] A long URL - 2 lines - second line is notclickable.

[G. Armour Van Horn]

What happens when you send a really long link through the system? In this case, I
suspect that the line is broken before Mailman ever sees it - it would be broken
if you sent it to a standard mail client just the same. But what you are sending
is a text URL, not a link. The link the reipient sees (that isn't working) is
created by the recipient mail client based on starting with http: and ending with
whitespace.

Here is your original URL, I've put it back on one line:
http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18_02.html

Now, here it is again as a link:
http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18_02.html

Unfortunately, that's behind a firewall and nobody outside The Kite Factory will
know if it worked again. Here is one that should be long enough to break
anything, based on all the URL encoding I used. First as text:
http://www.domainvanhorn.com/dropbox/copy%2520of%2520van%2527s%2520self%2520portrait%2520in%2520the%2520bathroom.jpg

And now as a link:
http://www.domainvanhorn.com/dropbox/copy%2520of%2520van%2527s%2520self%2520portrait%2520in%2520the%2520bathroom.jpg

I won't know until this goes through the system, but I suspect that all four will
be broken onto two lines, but that the linked versions will still work. Maybe
we'll all learn somethign at that point.

It's a universal problem. As the number of documents on a server grows, I think
we're going to have to abandon the idea of having humans read URLs for taxonomy -
it leads to URLs that break in too many places.

Van

Richard Barrett wrote:

> At 09:22 19/08/2002 -0700, Wang, Mary Y wrote:
> >Hi,
> >I am using Mailman 2.0.6-1 and Sendmail-8.11.6-3.  My users are complaining
> >about the line wrap problem when send mailing mail to the mail list with a
> >long URL.  It seems line wraps text lines that are longer than 80 characters
> >with no white-space.  If you include a long URL in a email message it
> >usually gets split onto separate lines and the typical email reader within
> >BCA (exchange) marks the first part of the link as clickable when usually it
> >isn't.  People have to paste the whole link back together manually in a web
> >browser input dialog to get it to work.
> >
> >First, I thought it maybe a Sendmail problem. So I tried send a mail via
> >Sendmail with a long URL and it appears to be fine.  The long URL did split
> >into two lines, and the second line is still highlighted as a href link, so
> >there was no problem.  By clicking the link, the browser would bring up the
> >correct information.
> >
> >However, sending an email to the mail list is a different problem.
> >
> >For example,
> >http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18
> >_02.html will show up with 2 lines and the second line would be ml and
> >wouldn't be highlighted as part of the URL that is clickable.
> >
> >Any clue?
> >
> >Thanks for any help.  We had this problem for about a year.  I finally got a
> >chance to look into it now.
> >
> >Mary
> >(562) 797-1545
>
> I suspect at the back of this is what RFC2822 says and how some Mail Agent
> code/configuration is interpreting the RFC:
>
> <quote>
> 2.1.1. Line Length Limits
>
>     There are two limits that this standard places on the number of
>     characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than
>     998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding
>     the CRLF.
>
>     ...
>
>     The more conservative 78 character recommendation is to accommodate
>     the many implementations of user interfaces that display these
>     messages which may truncate, or disastrously wrap, the display of
>     more than 78 characters per line, in spite of the fact that such
>     implementations are non-conformant to the intent of this
>     specification (and that of [RFC2821] if they actually cause
>     information to be lost). Again, even though this limitation is put on
>     messages, it is encumbant upon implementations which display messages
>     ...
>
> </quote>
>
> Mailman doesn't appear to fool with the line breaks in email sent to it for
> redistribution. Its internal archiver also appears to behave sensibly when
> processing long line into HTML archives files by only word wrapping long
> lines on white space to a reasonable length so that the <PRE> tagged
> message text displays sensibly with a web browser. So your long URL would
> survive intact transit through and archiving by MM. It certainly does on my
> MM system.
>
> Sendmail can be configured to limit line length so some MTA through which
> your mail is passing could be limiting line length though usually it will
> be to the 990 character limit.
>
> The MUA from whence the long URL originated is possible culprit.
>
> The fact is that the RFC admits the possibility of line length manipulation
> by Mail Agents although it could be regarded as anti-social to use the 78
> char limit. The only way to ensure line break changes do not corrupt your
> data is to base64 encode it; not the most convenient solution, I grant you.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Mailman-Users mailing list
> Mailman-Users at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> Mailman FAQ: http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py
> Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/

--
----------------------------------------------------------
Sign up now for Quotes of the Day, a handful of quotations
on a theme delivered every morning.
Enlightenment! Daily, for free!
mailto:twisted at whidbey.com?subject=Subscribe_QOTD

For web hosting and maintenance,
visit Van's home page: http://www.domainvanhorn.com/van/
----------------------------------------------------------

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/attachments/20020820/246cbbf8/attachment.html