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Re: [Mutt] #2956: =?UTF-8



On 2007-09-19 08:44:38 +0200, Rocco Rutte wrote:
> * Vincent Lefevre [07-09-18 15:17:30 +0200] wrote:
>> It doesn't necessarily make sense as the $charset may be completely
>> local to the machine (e.g. 'x-my-charset'). I think that trying to
>> convert the local charset to the last item of $send_charset, which
>> should be the most general charset (e.g. utf-8), makes more sense.
>
> In theory I agree. But $send_charset is user configurable and
> doesn't have to contain utf-8, it could even by empty. And still
> then, even with utf-8 (as in your case), conversion may fail not
> because the last item isn't generic enough but because the input is
> invalid.
>
> Even in that case mutt has to do something.

Conversion may also fail for $charset. So, Mutt has to do something in
this case too, and I think that Mutt should use replacement characters.
In any case, there should be a way to avoid $charset being used as a
fallback for $send_charset, as this doesn't always makes sense.

>> I think it is important to let the user control the fallback.
>
> I don't think that makes lots of sense since it's kind of
> micro-optimization, IMHO. Because at that point, no charset did fit
> and mutt is likely going to send out broken content anyway, so by
> letting the user control it you only give him the control in what
> specific way it's broken, not if it's broken at all.

Sending a subject encoded in UTF-8 with some replacement characters
for invalid sequences that could have occurred is much less broken
that sending a subject using a non-standard charset (leading to
completely-unreadable subject).

> For the case that all conversions failed because $send_charset is
> wrongly configured and the input is valid, $charset is the best
> choice, so I think it's really only about the case of broken input.

I think that utf-8 would be better than $charset as at least one knows
that it is a standard charset (whereas $charset isn't necessarily).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)