bug#16946: 24.3; Rmail behaviour with a username containing "@"

[Robert Thorpe]

My webspace provider gives usernames that are email addresses.  So, the
username for the smtp, pop and imap servers for this email address is 
"rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com".

I can't use the character "@" in a username though, if it's sent to
movemail then that program will confuse what follows for the server
name.  I.e. if I do:-
(setq rmail-primary-inbox-list  
'("imap://rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com@myserver.com")
Then everything after the first @ is taken to be the server address.

I can use "%40" as in web addresses instead of the first @.  If I do
that then movemail works fine and all my email is downloaded into the
temp file ".newmail-...."  Once this happens though Rmail gets confused.
Movemail creates a file containing "%" but Rmail is looking for "%40",
so it can't find the file.  It then report no new mail and doesn't copy
the temp file into RMAIL.

To solve this for myself I've edited the function
rmail-insert-inbox-text just after this bit:
      ;; At this point, TOFILE contains the name to read:
      ;; Either the alternate name (if we renamed)
      ;; or the actual inbox (if not renaming).

I've put in some code to substitute %40 for @ in tofile.  That fixes the
problem for me, but it's not a real fix.

I think at the least the manual should tell users they can't use
usernames with "@" in them.

BR,
Robert Thorpe


In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.4.2)
 of 2014-02-22 on chindi10, modified by Debian
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11103000
System Description:     Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS

Configured using:
 `configure '--build' 'i686-linux-gnu' '--build' 'i686-linux-gnu'
 '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib'
 '--localstatedir=/var/lib' '--infodir=/usr/share/info'
 '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes'
 
'--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs24:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.3/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.3/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp'
 '--with-crt-dir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu' '--with-x=yes'
 '--with-x-toolkit=gtk3' '--with-toolkit-scroll-bars'
 'build_alias=i686-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-g -O2 -fstack-protector
 --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Wformat-security
 -Werror=format-security -Wall' 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions
 -Wl,-z,relro' 'CPPFLAGS=-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_MONETARY: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LC_TIME: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_GB.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: RMAIL

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  global-visual-line-mode: t
  visual-line-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
M-x r m a i l <return> M-x r e p o r t <tab> <retu
rn>

Recent messages:
Loading debian-ispell...
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-default.el (source)...done
Loading debian-ispell...done
Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-dicts.el (source)...done
Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Counting messages...done
Getting mail from the remote server ...
(No new mail has arrived)
0 new messages read

Load-path shadows:
/usr/share/emacs/24.3/site-lisp/debian-startup hides 
/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/debian-startup
/usr/share/emacs24/site-lisp/dictionaries-common/flyspell hides 
/usr/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/textmodes/flyspell
/usr/share/emacs24/site-lisp/dictionaries-common/ispell hides 
/usr/share/emacs/24.3/lisp/textmodes/ispell

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug sendmail rmailmm message
format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader mail-parse rfc2231 rmail rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils server time-date tooltip
ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd
fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode
register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse
jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian
utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean
japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev
minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties
overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk
x-toolkit x multi-tty emacs)