[Leica] Incomplete digests and messages--the cause

["Peter A. Klein" <pklein@2alpha.net>]

I have for some time gotten incomplete digests on several mailing lists
to which I belong.  I recently received two incomplete digests on both
the LUG and the LEG.  Each digest ended prematurely at exactly the same
place in a message they had in common.  I believe I now know what's
causing the problem.  It's blank lines with only a period on them.

The two digests in question are:

LUG: Leica Users digest      Monday, January 1 2001       Volume 18 :
Number 295
LEG: Digest for leica@topica.com, issue 518    Date:Tue, 02 Jan 2001
01:50:46 -0800 

In each case, the digest ended at exactly the same spot near the
beginning of Erwin Puts' post, "exploring the limits (part 3)."  Here's
what I got:

- ----- begin clip -------
The results?
The best resolution I could get (averaged over some observations to
account
for eye fatigue and some unavoidable subjectivity when deceiding if a
certain pattern is just resolvable or not):
90  lp/mm in Gigabit with Rodinal (both Agfa products).
90 lp/mm with TechPan in  FX39
80 lp/mm with TechPan in Technidol LC (both Kodak products)
80 lp/mm in APX25 and TX39
70 to 80 lp/mm in Tmax100 in FX39.
- ----- end clip ---------

...at which point the digest ended.

I looked at Erwin's message in the LUG archives, and right after the
line in question, there is a line with only a period on it.  I spoke to
the guru at the UNIX-based ISP I use for personal email.  He says that a
blank line with a period is a signal in some UNIX email programs that
means, "I'm done, send this message."  This explains why messages are
getting cut off.

The ISP person goes on to explain that in SMTP servers, the convention
is that when mail is being sent that already includes a line with only a
period on it, an additional period is added to "escape" the line.  Then
the receiving server strips the additional period off.  In our case, our
mail list server is probably not adding the extra period.  If this is
so, I won't be the only one having the problem. He says I should tell
the person who runs the mail list software what's happening, and he can
correct it.

I confirmed this behavior by sending myself email with paragraphs
separated by a line containing only a period, and it behaved just as
Erwin's message had.  All I got was the first paragraph.  On my
MS-Exchange/Outlook system at work, this problem does not occur.  But
since many large-scale mail systems are UNIX-based, I doubt I'm the only
person who has this problem.

So, folks, a word to the wise:  Don't use lines with only a period on
them in your email, as they will terminate your message at that point on
some systems.

Would whoever manages the list/digest software look into this for the
future?

Thanks,
- --Peter