On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 01:31:27AM -0400, Kurt Hackenberg wrote: > Mboxcl2 does it the other way. Instead of using a marker, it uses a length, > stored in the non-standard header Content-Length:. Software reads the > message header section and in there finds the length of the message body, > and then just reads that many bytes, and then it has the whole message. It > doesn't need to scan for the next mbox From_ line, so whatever wrote the > file didn't have to change any message lines that start with "From ", to > make them start with ">From " instead.
Right, totally understand all of this, but where I'm confused is that if the claim is that Mutt uses Mboxcl2 (as I think the man page for mbox(5) implies, and also as it adds the Content-Length header) it shouldn't _need_ to escape the "From " lines in message bodies, but it does anyway. My guess is that maybe it does this is in service of the Robstness principle and / or to maintain compatibility with other mbox implementations? I thought there was a config variable that controlled the behavior, but seems like not. /w
