sig delimiters (was Re: <OT> yet more Gmail invites)

[Tim Wunder]

(I know, I know... Top Posting...)
The explanation of Matt Carpenter's sig problem:
http://mozdev.org/pipermail/enigmail/2003-August/000233.html

It's an archived post from 2003, so I'm surprised Mozilla Thunderbird 
still exhibits the problem.

On 2/25/2005 11:41 AM, I believe that Richard Ebling wrote:
> 
>   Hi, Matthew.  I've been enjoying the conversation, and appreciate the 
> points of view I've seen here. [-1] [3]
> 
>   The convention for the .sig delimiter (not technically a standard [0] 
> ) is that it should begin in the very first column of a new line 
> (presumably following a CR/LF), and consist of the following three 
> "printable" characters (if you consider a spacebar keystroke to be a 
> printable character) in sequence, followed by a new line [1]:
> 
>   a hyphen
>   a hyphen
>   a blank space
> 
>    I think a regexp for this delimiter would be (modulo the 
> apostrophes):    '^-- $'  (StartOfLine-hyphen-hyphen-space-EndOfLine) 
> when using the bash shell, anyway.
> 
> 
> I've included one below, but delimited it by apostrophes so hopefully 
> your mailreader won't eat it:
> 
> '-- ' (two hyphens followed by a blank, followed by a CR/LF
> 
> What I see at the bottom of your message is
> (newline)
>  hyphen
>  blank space
>  hyphen
>  hyphen
>  (maybe a blank space, I can't tell in PINE)
> (newline)
> 
> - --  which I've apostrophe-encapsulated as: '- --' or '- -- '
> 
>      - Richard
> 
> [-1] ObTop/BottomPOV:  when sending a reply to an individual, (not as 
> part of a threaded discussion), I usually top-post, and bottom-post when 
> engaging in discussions, especially ones that are likely to be read 
> someday in the future, by people searching the archives).  If the 
> (previous) discussion has elements that may interfere with the whole 
> reply being readable, though, I make an exception.  Like this one. [3]
> 
> [0] defined in "son-of-rfc1036" (proposed successor to RFC1036):
>   "...the  signature SHOULD be preceded with a delimiter
>   line containing (only) two hyphens (ASCII  45)  followed  by
>   one  blank  (ASCII  32)."
> 
> [1] on my keyboard (104-keyboard, US-english qwerty layout, PC running 
> Linux), I generate a "blank space" by pressing the spacebar, and 
> generate a hyphen by pressing the (unshifted) key just to the right of 
> the character 0 (zero).  [2]
> 
> [2] See http://www.answers.com/topic/dash for more about this character 
> and things that look like it, and an explanation of the uses of "endash" 
> and "emdash".
> 
> [3] Damn.  This started out as a reply, but now I've blathered long 
> enough and done enough homework that I've decided to post this to the 
> list.  However, to prevent all my hard work getting chopped off by 
> mailreaders, I'll top-post this message.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> 
>> Reply-To: Linux tips and tricks <linux-users at linux-sxs.org>
>> Subject: Re: <OT> yet more Gmail invites
> 
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Nothing I'm doing intentionally, I asure you.  It has the standard "--"
>> delimeter when I send it. Perhaps I accidently did that one since I
>> doctored the signature in the message.
>> Again, I apologize if I've been annoying people.  I didn't even realize
>> it.
>>
>> - --
>> Matthew Carpenter
>> matt at eisgr.com                          http://www.eisgr.com/
>>
>> Enterprise Information Systems
> 
> [...]
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