In old Unix MBOX files, all your email is contained in one large text
file, and the only way the reader can tell when one message ends and a new
one begins is by looking for a line which begins with the string "From."
Therefore, when that string is found by accident at the start of a line in
the middle of a message, the sending agent prefixes a ">" character to it
or makes some other change to avoid confusing the reader on the other end
into thinking that your email has ended and a new one begun.
Something like that, at any rate, I seem to recall.
Evans Winner
IS System Administrator
PO Box 23040·Albuquerque, NM·87192-1040
505.237.7111 || 800.947.5328 x 7111
ewinner@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.slfcu.org
From: CRPence <CRPbottle@xxxxxxxxx>
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx,
Date: 02/20/2014 01:10 PM
Subject: What is so special about the word "From"? (was: Removing a
procedure from a service program)
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
On 20-Feb-2014 11:43 -0800, Charles Wilt wrote:
<<SNIP>> it won't.
From a stand point of never having <<SNIP>>
I have seen an effect that seems very pervasive, whereby any line
starting with the word "from" seems to be prefixed by the greater-than
sign. Anybody aware of what originates that very bizarre modification;
I highly doubt this is something people are choosing to do by themselves
and that instead this is the effect of some client [email] software? It
has a conspicuously deleterious effect on USENET styling of message
quoting [which is what the archives quoting depends on], because the
text appears to be something that was quoted from a prior message rather
than being part of the message. See that effect in the archive of the
above quoted message:
<
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/201402/msg00531.html>
midrange.com
