590 content-types ain't enough



  • I got this funky email from my favourite online book store. Instantly I
    asked them "WTF?", currently I'm waiting for their answer. I'm posting
    here a very very brief excerpt from the header of the email

    It's good to see they really care about the charset and don't want to
    take any chances the email is not displayed correctly on my side :-)
    But is 591 charset specifications really that necessary ?



    -----------------------

    From www@brloh.brloh.sk  Tue May 31 12:38:57 2005

    Return-Path: <www@brloh.brloh.sk>

    X-Original-To: #####@host.sk

    Delivered-To: #####t@host.sk

    Received: from brloh.brloh.sk (brloh.brloh.sk [217.67.30.158])

        by mail.host.sk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2546916C0B9

        for <#####@host.sk>; Tue, 31 May 2005 12:38:57 +0200 (CEST)

    Received: from www by brloh.brloh.sk with local (Exim 4.50 (FreeBSD))

        id 1Dd49D-00069N-S8

        for #####@host.sk; Tue, 31 May 2005 12:38:59 +0200

    To: #####@host.sk

    Subject: Informacie o novinkach v BRLOHu

    From: Kníhkupectvo BRLOH <brloh@brloh.sk>

    X-Sender: brloh@brloh.sk

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    .

    .

    .

    ( I will spare you the remaining 586 lines)

    .

    .

    .

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250

    Message-Id: <E1Dd49D-00069N-S8@brloh.brloh.sk>

    Sender: World Wide Web Owner <www@brloh.brloh.sk>

    Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 12:38:59 +0200
    KNIZNE NOVINKY:

    SCI-FI:

    Grubb Jeff: Krizova cesta - StarCraft 1

    HOROR:

    King Stephen: O psani - memoary o remesle

    Ak ste si tento e-mail nevyziadali, alebo uz nechcete dostavat nase
    novinky, prihláste sa svojim menom a heslom a v sekcii PROFIL najdete
    NOVINKY EMAILOM. Tu mate moznost deaktivovat alebo aktivovat jednotlive
    casti zasielania noviniek.

    Kníhkupectvo BRLOH

    ---------------------------------



  • Hmm it is a bit like

    y = x;


    y = x; // just in case



    Possible it ( the email software responsible ) has some sort of loop
    that adds the content-type and it 'forgets' ( read : programmer forgot
    ) to not display the content-type the second time round ( and the third
    , forth ... ). I havent done and programming for email software but a
    common is to use "var .= var2" ( or the equivalent in your langage of
    choice ) when "var = var2" was intended .. maybe



Log in to reply