ml>> what is wrong with the origin line? =IT= is required...

 PE> You're completely missing (my/the) point.  If I get the following
 PE> message from you:

 PE> *   EXEC SQL DELETE FROM tab1;
 PE> *   --- Whatever, you do, don't, repeat don't
 PE> *   --- comment out the above line, or the next job will screw up
 PE> *   SEENBY: etc


 PE> I want to determine which bit is user-text (in this case the user-
 PE> text appears to be an SQL program, which incidentally uses "--" as
 PE> a comment), and which bit is control lines generated in order to
 PE> comply with FTS-4. How do I do it?

you get your arse to the END of the message and start backing up... when
you reach (1:111/222) you know that you are at the end of what appears to
be an origin line. keep backing up till you get the beginning of the origin
line... now you have the end of all user entered text... you also have the
origin line, the seen-bys, and the path and they should already be either
modified or stored in a structure for later manipulation. since you have
the end of the user entered text, you only need to start at the beginning
and read to that point... simple...

 PE> Is that "--- comment out the above line" etc a tearline
 PE> (in which case I want to hide it, for the same reason I want SEENBY

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! so =THAT'S= the problem... you want to HIDE a
tearline... i say don't worry about the damned things... support the PID
proposal fully and they (tearlines) will eventually go by the wayside...
until then, what's the beef?  you've fussed about me not flying any
tearline but it supports what you want, no tearline in the message when
displayed to the reader... now, make up your mind, man...

 PE> lines hidden), or is it part of the SQL program?  What algorithm do
 PE> you have that gets it right for
 PE> your program, and also gets it right for a message from me, and
 PE> 99.99% of the rest of fidonet?  It is TECHNICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.  But

BS... see above...

 PE> it's the most fundamental REQUIREMENT of a mail system. Just
 PE> typical of fidonet ot make a complete dogs-breakfast out of it.

no... you made dogs breakfast out of something that is so minor that it's
not worth even crying about... face it, users will put things in their
messages because they want to... authors will add some kind of identifiers
to their programs so they can track them for some reason. in some cases,
these two things may be close in appearance... so what? it's not anything
worth crying over...

)\/(ark