79064 - Automatic linking of URL and e-mail addresses too sensitive

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 32442

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Skewer]

Expected: The following text should not be turned into e-mail links.

b@rt
z!%*#@$(*
no@spam@nospam
z@@@
z@.com

Actual: All of the above examples are turned into e-mail links, even though none
of them are even close to valid.

Build: 20010505 Win98

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

good catch.

varada was just in the converter code, he seems like a good candidate.

some where in our account wizard code, we have some incomplete "email"
validation code.  

we should consolidate the code and find a proper home for it.
then, we can use it from the wizard and the converters.

be careful where you put it.  if you put it in a mailnews service it might be
needed when mailnews isn't installed.

(suresh, didn't you need this for AIM?)

Comment 2

[Suresh]

Seth, when I talked to you about this the other day I meant something else. But
definetely we need this for IM too.  I think this should be placed in a common
place so others can benefit from it!!

Comment 3

[Skewer]

Since most users would rather not have every word with an @ in it converted to
an e-mail link, suggesting for nsCatFood.

Comment 4

[Skewer]

Today I found out that the URL hyperlinking system is also too sensitive. I got
an e-mail today similar to this:

Hello...how are you?

The words [Hello...how] were converted into a hyperlink that leads to
<http://Hello...how>. Obviously, this is wrong, because a URL cannot have an
empty segment like that. Furthermore, I would be wary of linking anything unless
it begins with www. This is also possible:

Visit the IRC server today at irc.dal.net port 6667.

[irc.dal.net] is linked to <http://irc.dal.net>, but this is clearly incorrect,
as the address is not an HTTP server. It would be nice if everyone paired an RFC
protocol with all their links, but assumptions like this are dangerous. I would
even say this is worse than the first case because it creates confusion; the
recipient might try clicking <http://irc.dal.net> and think that the IRC server
doesn't work.

Comment 5

[Dimitrios]

I came into this when I received a message containing technical information.
Every instance of a word that contains numbers with decimal point is displayed
as a http link. E.g., send a message to yourself containing the text below:
2.54mm
3.579545MHz
0.11
D=8.5
0.1uF

Actual results: all the above words are considered hypertext links.

Comment 6

[Lars Linek]

*** Bug 100576 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Seth, suresh,

to check if an email address is valid, construct an mailto: URI. If the
construction (New_URI(), IIRC) fails, it's invalid. Unfortunately, currently,
that checking code could need some improvement, to be polite. :-)

If you need to detect email addresses or other URIs within normal text, the
txt->html converter is the one to ask. It doesn't have the prefect function for
that use yet, because nobody needed it yet, but I'd be willing ot add it, if you
need it. Just ask me.


All,

> The words [Hello...how] were converted into a hyperlink
> [irc.dal.net] is linked to <http://irc.dal.net>

Other bug, fixed.


Many remaining cases of too much linking are actually parts of bug 19313, in one
way ot the other. In this case, too.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 32442 ***

Comment 8

[Mark Bitterling]

Just noticed that the test case of z@.com still fails.

I realize that this bug has been closed as a dupe of 32442, but that bugs looks
a bit more complicated than needed to address this one case.  

Comment 9

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

This bug was for a regression, please file the other bugs specifically (like the
z@.com case).

Thanks. Verified dup.