[5946] in Athena Bugs
rt 7.0F: zwrite
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sethf@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Sep 5 05:51:12 1990
From: sethf@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
To: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 05:51:00 EDT
System name: frumious-bandersnatch
Type and version: RTPC-ROMPC 7.0F
Display type: apa16
Bug: zwrite user '' sends to message,personal,*.
The reasons that this happens have been explained, but I argue
that for zwrite to accept a null argument is a user-interface error.
While it may make great sense for any-recipient to be internally
represented as null, externally it should require encoding as '*', as
the specifier for any-recipient is always documented that way. Entering
a null recipient on the command line should be flagged as an error, as
it was most probably not what the user intended. I would bet this
representation is also the source of the occasional mysterious
message,personal,* zgrams that appear from printer servers and xzwrites.
I came upon this problem through an entirely innocent and
reasonable set of circumstances - i.e. I wasn't trying to hack or fake
Zephyr in any way or do oddball things. I was modifying my .zwgc.desc
to deal differently with no-signature and no-body messages. In order to
test this and not bother people, I tried typing things such as
zwrite sethf -s ^@ -m ''.
The -s ate the -m, making the line effectively zwrite sethf '',
with the embarrassing result that a message was sent out to personal,*.
As the treatment of null is nowhere documented that I have ever seen on
the user level, this outcome is a bug, not a feature.
================
Seth Finkelstein
sethf@athena.mit.edu
