BL>   Have you actually written your reader yet? How do you do it? You
BL> just put EOT ahead of the Tearline... right? So what's EOT doing? If

Bob doesn't even know what a tearline is yet, so you can safely
ignore anything he says on the topic until then.

BL>   If you want to write a PKT reader and are tempted to add SOT/EOT,
BL> just add a Tearline and Origin line instead.... or sweet nothing at

Yes, if tearline is compulsory, AND a blank line before the tearline
is either mandatory or forbidden (by software automatic-generation),
then yes, there is no need for EOT.  As I said a long, long time ago.

FM> Is it possible, in general, to scan a PKT and work out where to
FM> put SOT/EOT? If not why not, what stuffs you up from doing
FM> that?

BL>   Yes, you can insert your own SOT/EOT.

No, you can't.

BL>                             SOT:

BL>   Read the 4 null-terminated strings that make up the header fields,
BL> read the next line. If it is "AREA:" read the message until you run

Oh dear, getting control information from user-text.  Dear oh dear.
It's people like Bob that created the problem in the first place.  :-(

BL> top of a message in Netmail. If you use SOT it may confuse someone's
BL> reader, so just add "#1IllogicalTwit" and it'll do the same thing
BL> anyway.

^AILLOGICALTWIT instead of ^ASOT.  Yeah, it all makes perfect
sense now that I've temporarily removed my brain [fx: reinserts
brain].

BL> 2.  E-MAIL

BL>   In e-mail, find the end, read backwards to find the first line of
BL> the SEEN-BYs. If not found the message is dangerously faulty, so log
BL> it and remove it. Read backwards to find Origin line. This should be
BL> close to the SEEN-BY (120 bytes max). If not found you have a message

120 bytes max?  Where did you get that one from, Bob?  Your arse,
oh, sorry, I almost forgot.

BL>   If you find the Origin line, look for the Tearline within 80 bytes.

Another 80 bytes obtained from inspecting your anal passage?
Right on, Bob.  Did you design the T29 too?

BL> If found look for an EOT. If found remove it and add your own in front
BL> of the Tearline. The other dopey bastard may have put his EOT in the
BL> wrong place. 

Yeah, right.  Can't rely on them getting EOT right, so best not
rely on them getting the origin right either, so ignore that.  And
ignore the text too, and the header, yeah right, makes perfect
sense now.

BL> If no Tearline found, look for EOT. If found remove it
BL> and put your own EOT in front of the Origin line. 

Above or below the blank line?  And anyhow, there was a line
starting "---", can't remember if it was a tearline or user-text,
hard to tell the difference come to think of it.

BL>   You will observe that when you find the EOT, the best thing to do is
BL> remove it.

That's the point of it, you can safely remove it once you have the
text-body distinguished.

BL>   And the mere fact that you can add SOT/EOT to a PKT proves that it

Uh oh, a "Bill Grimsley Fact" I see.

BL> has no function. It's a worry when a "programmer" like
Paul can't use 
BL> logic.

It's a worry that you got a degree in engineering and come up with
the sort of crackpot design that gave us FTS-4 in the first place.
A REAL worry.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

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