241576 - FILTERS: Do Not Use Printable Characters As 'Magic'

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[David A. Cobb]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a) Gecko/20040416 Firefox/0.8.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a) Gecko/20040416 Firefox/0.8.0+

MY MUA: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6+ (20040418), but this likely applies to
Mozilla/MailNews as well.

This is a generalization of <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=240558> 
If y'all want to re-title that one to make it more general & 'DUPE' this, fine!

My purpose is simply to name a group of folders so they sort lower than any
alphanumeric name.
Because I know the folder name becomes a file / directory name, that gives me a
certain set of legal characters - with some differences among OS's.

I originally used '@': as the cited bug states, that caused all the filters with
a '@' anywhere in the path to break (filtering cannot find the folder any more).
I don't recall whether I tried '!' - probably.
Then I tried '.' which I know is valid in a name (but slightly special).  
HEY!  All the folders with leading '.' do not display in the folder-tree. 
Interesting to know, but not awefully useful.
Then I tried '-'.  WIERD - Windows ignores the '-' in sorting folders, so my
"special" folders wind up ordered by the second character.  

At the moment, I am trying '$'.
Now, this is really strange.  when I renamed the folders (and zero-length mbx
file) with '$', the names show in the folder-tree with the leading '.' they had
two iterations previously.  VERY VERY STRANGE.  But, if filtering can find them
I could live with this.  

Incidently, I "tested" these characters by closing the dialog and running the
re-named filter.  They all worked, including the '.' and the '@' -- the problems
started the next time I lit off T-Bird.

SOLUTION: If you absolutely MUST use a 'magic' byte value, perhaps to terminate
the string or whatever, make it a non-printable character.  And ABSOLUTELY,
POSITIVELY, check names entered in the various filter naming / re-naming dialogs
so that it is not possible to create a folder name that other parts of the
process cannot access.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
See 'DETAILS'

Comment 1

[David A. Cobb]

SORRY: "various filter naming" should read "various FOLDER naming"

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.