1800997 - Message composition performs odd "From "-quoting

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, task)

Description

[Ben Campbell]

I just noticed that draft messages saved from message composition have some odd "From "-quoting rules. Lines in the message body which begin with "From " are prepended with a space, rather than a '>'.

Steps to replicate:

1. Start on an IMAP account, with composition format set to plain text.
2. click "Write" and enter a message like this:

A normal boring line.
From - this line will require quoting.
>From - this line will too.
 From - this line will not (because of the space at the beginning).

3. Click "save" to save a copy to the drafts folder
4. Look at the mbox file on the filesystem, and find the body of your new stored message.

Observed result

The message body in the mbox file is:

A normal boring line.
 From - this line will require quoting.
 >From - this line will too.
  From - this line will not (because of the space at the beginning).

(Note the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines all have an extra leading space).

Expected result

'>' should be used as a quoting character.
So the message body in the mbox file should look like:

A normal boring line.
>From - this line will require quoting.
>>From - this line will too.
 From - this line will not (because of the space at the beginning).

(Note: 4th line doesn't require "From "-quoting, because it starts with a space, not "From ").

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Does this influence the appearance of the message in message reader? If not, consider changing bug type to "task".

Comment 2

[Ben Campbell]

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #1)

Does this influence the appearance of the message in message reader? If not, consider changing bug type to "task".

Sure thing.
A fix is definitely a required from the point of view of Bug 1719121.
There are some odd interactions: clicking "edit as new" on a draft message with these lines loads it into the composition window showing the > lines as quoted reply lines... not sure if it's intended behaviour. If so it seems odd that the message appears different from when it was saved. I haven't really delved deep into that side of it.