PE> BL>   It is always possible to identify the true Tearline, by counting

PE> No it isn't.

FM> I agree, but I don't think I care - why on earth do you want to
FM> identify the tear line?

In order to identify the user-text!  A very fundamental thing to 
want to do!!!!

PE> Says who?  Where does it say that there are no other control lines

FM> So read blank as blank-or-control, in the above?

I don't really know.

PE> When you receive a message without SOT/EOT, you just have to take
PE> one big guess.  When you receive a message with SOT/EOT, you know
PE> that it follows a set of rules to enable to you find the user-entered
PE> text.

FM> But the majority of messages don't have it. So you have to include rules
FM> for those cases anyway. And the originating software could have
FM> generated tag-origin lines instead of ^aEOT, and those rules would
FM> handle it

I'm not sure what you're saying.  There's no such thing as a tagline
as far as the FTS specs are concerned.

FM> Sure, but I don't think it helps. What I would really like to
FM> understand, for example, is this "reading backwards" thing. I don't
FM> think it's necessary, I get the impression you don't think it's
FM> necessary, but I'd really like to see what Bob's doing.

I do a scan backwards in my mailprocessor.  I consider it to be
the simplest way to get what I want.  I used to do a forward
search for origin and then continue on.  That was when I first
found out the joys of what some considered to be an optional
origin line.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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