[iyonix-support] Re: ROM 512 and posts with =20.

In message <3b6dec7d4e.pnyoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 Dr Peter Young <pnyoung@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 30 Oct 2006  Julie <julie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Oct, <Iyonix.2006a@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> In message <00206b7c4e.Chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>           Chris Terran <chris.terranova@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Just to try here are the odd German umlauts: =E4=F6=FC :-)
>> 
>> Show up fine here (using Pluto 2.04e, I really MUST upgrade!)
> 
> Curiouser and curiouser.
> 
> They appeared here (1) as umlauts in the original post, but as =**
> when quoted above. I wonder how they'll appear to people in this post.
> 
> (1) Messenger Pro 4.12

Everybody sees =** in Julie's reply.

I'll try and explain what is going on.

There are 2 basic formats for emails 7bit characters (characters 
0-127)  and 8bit characters (characters 0-255). 7bit is the prefered 
format as it is guaranteed that it will be transmitted unchanged.

However with 7bit characters you can't send characters 128-255 
directly so the email is encoded and characters 128-255 are converted 
to =** (eg a pound sign is converted to =A3) this encoding is called 
quoted-printable.

So that the client you use can convert the message back to the 
original message it needs to know that the encoding is 
quoted-printable. It can find this out by looking at the 
'Content-Transfer-Encoding' in the header of the email.

So what has happened here is:

  1) Herbert sent an email with umlauts in. He has set his client 
     to use 8bit transfers. So we all get an email showing 
     umlauts. If you don't then the client you are using doesn't 
     support 8bit encoding.

  2) Julie reads Herberts email and replies. Her client is set 
     for 7bit transfers and so encodes her reply with 
     quoted-printable encoding because she has characters in her 
     email greater than 127. This changes the umlauts to
     =E4=F6=FC and adds a header line like this

     Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

     to her email

  3) We all get Julies reply but the mailing list has changed

     Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

     to

     Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit

     which it shouldn't do. So when your email client gets the 
     email its told it is 8bit and therefore doesn't decode the 
     quoted-printable encoding so you see the =E4=F6=FC etc.


-- 
Colin
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