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Postfix Archives: Re: wrapping/warping external error messages

Re: wrapping/warping external error messages in a bounce message

Barry A. Warsaw (bwarsawcnri.reston.va.us)
Wed, 24 Nov 1999 17:24:28 -0500 (EST)

[Replying from an egroups posting...]

>>>>> "Greg" == Greg A. Woods:

Greg> These are the kinds of issues that really befuddle and
Greg> frustrate end users too. I can tell you from experience
Greg> that if an MTA manages to change a pretty-printed diagnostic
Greg> message into what the average layman will be unable to
Greg> distinguish from line noise then those users won't have very
Greg> much good to say about that MTA.

>>>>> "WV" == Wietse Venema <wiets-porcupine.org> writes:

WV> Let's not get carried away here. Postfix maps control
WV> characters to harmless ones then wraps long lines.

It's simply that wrapping that I'm complaining about. Why do that at
all? I mean, what is the motivation for doing the wrapping? Is it to
make the included text more human readable? Easier for a program to
locate or parse? It would seem like it is less work and does the
least harm to not do the wrapping.

It doesn't matter what you think about Python tracebacks, the point is
that they help a knowledgeable system engineer figure out what is
going wrong. Postfix's wrapping of this output is too clever for its
own good (IMO).

I know I'm being a PITA about what must seem like a minor point, but I
really do think important diagnostic information is being needlessly
tossed. Anyway, thanks for listening!

-Barry

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Wed Nov 24 1999 - 20:19:50 CST