360684 - Raw UTF-8 Subject header unexpectedly parsed correctly

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(MailNews Core :: MIME, defect)

Description

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Spun off from bug 351541.

This isn't necessarily a problem, but isn't expected behavior.  At that bug, somebody posted a .EML file -- attachment 238663 [details] -- which has a Subject header including a UTF-8 representation of a single character (accented e).

The expected (if not-necessarily desired) behavior is to display that header in the Thread pane and in the envelope not according to the message's Content-
Type-specified charset, but according to whatever charset is specified for the containing folder.  In fact, the reporter of that bug complains about exactly that behavior (which is bug 90584).

However, in testing, I integrated that message into a mail folder under Thunderbird and under Seamonkey.  In both cases, the header always shows in both the thread pane and envelope with the character expected from the UTF-8 encoding.  I see this regardless of the default encoding of the folder; and the envelope panel doesn't change from displaying the 'correct' text no matter what I select via the View|Encoding menu.  I also see it displayed correctly if I open the file as a .EML.  I see this even in a new profile.

While I think it would be just fine if the header display code auto-detected UTF-8, if that's actually what's happening it ought to be documented as such.
And it ought to be overridable using View|Encoding.

Comment 1

[Jerry Amundson]

Four and half year old bugs. Wow, not good. Clearly though, "expected behaviour" is a matter of opinion. So, if even relevant still, a RESOLVED/WORKSFORME would probably suffice.

Comment 2

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

EAI requests that headers be UTF-8, so we should always try decoding as UTF-8 first.