216178 - Format=flowed uses incorrect space stuffing

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[Tim Altman]

User-Agent:       Opera/7.20 (Windows NT 5.1; U)  [en]
Build Identifier: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.2a (20030813)

Lines beginning with spaces aren't space stuffed correctly.  According to 
section 4.4 of RFC 2646, "On generation, any unquoted lines which start with 
">", and any lines which start with a space or "From " SHOULD be space-stuffed.  
Other lines MAY be space-stuffed as desired."  If you send a line of text in 
Thunderbird that begins with a space, that space will be removed upon receipt 
with a format=flowed client, as the line wasn't space stuffed.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Send an e-mail with a line beginning with a space
2. View it in a format=flowed compliant client (including Thunderbird)

Actual Results:  
One space is always stripped from any line beginning with (at least) one space.

Expected Results:  
The line beginning with a space should have been space stuffed.

Comment 1

[Dario Dariol]

IMHO it's not a bug.
Section 4.4 of RFC 2646 says:
  On generation, any unquoted lines which start with ">",
  and any lines which start with a space or "From " SHOULD be space-stuffed.
  Other lines MAY be space-stuffed as desired.

So there is NO requirement for other lines.
Generally, if the user-agent does not space-stuff other-lines
then old user-agents (i.e. user-agent non RFC2646 compliant)
will not see any problem.

Instead, if the user-agent space-stuff other-lines
then old user-agents (i.e. user-agent non RFC2646 compliant)
will see a bad email with broken indented lines.

So I suggest to NOT fix the current behavior.

Comment 2

[Tim Altman]

This bug report isn't about "other lines," it's about lines that start with 
spaces, thus "SHOULD" be space stuffed.

Comment 3

[Tobias Schacht]

I made a post on MozillaZine-Forums which may be ralated:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=206486#206486

And I'm still seeing this with Thunderbird 0.3 (20031008).

Comment 4

[Scott MacGregor]

this is something for the format=flow folks to work out. 

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Tim Altman, did you encounter this problem while composing as HTML and 
sending as plain?  Or, did you have mailnews.wraplength=0?  See bug 125928 
and bug 261467: in both cases, the text is not processed to be f=f, including failing to stuff spaces before lines beginning with space.

Comment 6

[Tim Altman]

Mike: I'm still able to reproduce the problem in 1.5 when using the default mailnews.wraplength setting of 72 and composing as plaintext.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Mike: I'm still able to reproduce the problem in 1.5 when using the default
> mailnews.wraplength setting of 72 and composing as plaintext.

Hm.  I can't.  Please save your test message (from the Sent folder) as a .EML file and attach it to this bug (using the Create New Attachment link above).

Comment 8

[Tim Altman]

Attachment: Test message (.eml)

Comment 9

[Tim Altman]

According to space-stuffing rules, the first line of the raw e-mail should have two spaces, but only has one.  The message was created by typing " This line begins with a space."  In a format=flowed client, this line will not appear with a space at the beginning.

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Do you have any extensions installed?  If so, do you get the same symptom after restarting TB in Safe Mode?

Comment 11

[Tim Altman]

No, no extensions installed.  Same behavior in Safe mode.

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #9)
> According to space-stuffing rules, the first line of the raw e-mail should
> have two spaces, but only has one.  The message was created by typing 
> " This line begins with a space."  In a format=flowed client, this line will
> not appear with a space at the beginning.

Have you by any chance turned off f=f display?  That message displays correctly for me.  The pref to turn display off is:
  mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support
Default is 'false'.

Comment 13

[Tim Altman]

Nope, format=flowed is enabled.

Comment 14

[J Luh]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Have you by any chance turned off f=f display?  That message displays correctly
> for me.  The pref to turn display off is:
>   mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support
> Default is 'false'.
> 

I think the reporter is talking about how Thunderbird creates the message, not how it displays the message. It works for me with Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 though.

Comment 15

[Tim Altman]

WFM in Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 under Windows XP.

@James: Yes, I was referring to how Thunderbird created the message.