[Users] ASCII text attachments (Paul)

[Alberto Girlando]

On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:00:01 +0100
users-request at lists.claws-mail.org wrote:

Thank you Paul for the quick reply,
which prompted me to make some
additional tests. I created a small
ASCII file, with line length less than 80 characters
to be sure. The extension was *.cif (crystallographic
exchange, are ASCII files properly configured to
be read by a given program) as in my first attempt).
As in that attempt, the file was encoded 64 and embedded
into the mail after my signature, like this:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Alberto Girlando
Parma University



Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=prova.cif

OzsgVGhpcyBidWZmZXIgaXMgZm9yIG5vdGVzIHlvdSBkb24ndCB3YW50IHRvIHNhdmUKOzsgSWYg
eW91IHdhbnQgdG8gY3JlYXRlIGEgZmlsZSwgdmlzaXQgdGhhdCBmaWxlIHdpdGggQy14IEMtZiwK
OzsgdGhlbiBlbnRlciB0aGUgdGV4dCBpbiB0aGF0IGZpbGUncyBvd24gYnVmZmVyLgoK

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then I changed the extension of the file, putting *.txt.
The file was transmitted as an attachment, and with
the correct encoding (was perfectly readable, without any
action on my side)

Final test: I changed again extension, to *.xyz,
another ASCII format often used in scientific environment.
Again. encoded 64 and embedded into the mail. I can change
the encoding, as you suggested, and the message is transmitted
correctly, but always embedded into the text.

My conclusion is that is the extension that determines
the behavior, rather than a test through the "file" facility:
if the extension is not known, the file is embedded into the text
of the mail.

All the best

Alberto



  

> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:42:06 +0000
> From: Paul <claws at thewildbeast.co.uk>
> To: users at lists.claws-mail.org
> Subject: Re: [Users] ASCII text attachments
> Message-ID: <20151210094206.43c46d5d at kujata.lan>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 08:54:04 +0100
> Alberto Girlando <alberto.girlando at unipr.it> wrote: 
> 
> > I have sent an e-mail with a *.txt attachment
> > (well, the extension was not *.txt but
> > in any case was an ASCII file). Now the attachment
> > was included in the mail, and with 64 encoding,
> > so it was unreadable. I found the way to
> > have it readable, by imposing an other encoding.  
> 
> Use 7bit or 8bit encoding, line length less than 1000 characters.
> 
> > But in any case the the attachment was embedded in the mail,
> > which is very inconvenient as the file is
> > made to be read by an appropriate program.  
> 
> An attachment is never embedded in the mail, it's always an
> attachment.
> 
> > I googled around, and made several trials, looking
> > at the possibility of changing something in the
> > preferences, but found nothing. Other attachments formats, like
> > libre office or pdf, are OK. Why ASCII by default are considered
> > part of the mail ?   
> 
> They are not.
> 
> with regards
> 
> Paul
> 




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Prof. Alberto Girlando
Parma University
Dipartimento di Chimica
Parco Area delle Scienze 17/a
43124-I Parma, Italy

Tf. +39 0521 905443
FAX +39 0521 905556
e-mail: girlando at unipr.it
www: http://continfo.chim.unipr.it/mmaa/