send-email: automatically determine transfer-encoding

git send-email, when invoked without a --transfer-encoding option, sends
8bit data without a MIME version or a transfer encoding.  This has
several downsides.

First, unless the transfer encoding is specified, it defaults to 7bit,
meaning that non-ASCII data isn't allowed.  Second, if lines longer than
998 bytes are used, we will send an message that is invalid according to
RFC 5322.  The --validate option, which is the default, catches this
issue, but it isn't clear to many people how to resolve this.

To solve these issues, default the transfer encoding to "auto", so that
we explicitly specify 8bit encoding when lines don't exceed 998 bytes
and quoted-printable otherwise.  This means that we now always emit
Content-Transfer-Encoding and MIME-Version headers, so remove the
conditionals from this portion of the code.

It is unlikely that the unconditional inclusion of these two headers
will affect the deliverability of messages in anything but a positive
way, since MIME is already widespread and well understood by most email
programs.

Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/git-send-email.txt b/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
index 0e648075bbd024229edcf4ba847e06a8ab53d404..2f32dbf16d1dc61528cae1a761cbd5d5406a893b 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
@@ -147,8 +147,7 @@ Note that no attempts whatsoever are made to validate the encoding.
        otherwise.
 +
 Default is the value of the `sendemail.transferEncoding` configuration
-value; if that is unspecified, git will use 8bit and not add a
-Content-Transfer-Encoding header.
+value; if that is unspecified, default to `auto`.
 
 --xmailer::
 --no-xmailer::

diff --git a/git-send-email.perl b/git-send-email.perl
index e6bcc55827cd800eded9cfd76b25fff24e4deb8f..f4c07908d2737203031bdcab7f4f30404e64d4e5 100755 (executable)
--- a/git-send-email.perl
+++ b/git-send-email.perl
@@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ my ($validate, $confirm);
 my (@suppress_cc);
 my ($auto_8bit_encoding);
 my ($compose_encoding);
-my ($target_xfer_encoding);
+my $target_xfer_encoding = 'auto';
 
 my ($debug_net_smtp) = 0;              # Net::SMTP, see send_message()
 
@@ -1737,17 +1737,11 @@ sub process_file {
                        }
                }
        }
-       if (defined $target_xfer_encoding) {
-               $xfer_encoding = '8bit' if not defined $xfer_encoding;
-               ($message, $xfer_encoding) = apply_transfer_encoding(
-                       $message, $xfer_encoding, $target_xfer_encoding);
-       }
-       if (defined $xfer_encoding) {
-               push @xh, "Content-Transfer-Encoding: $xfer_encoding";
-       }
-       if (defined $xfer_encoding or $has_content_type) {
-               unshift @xh, 'MIME-Version: 1.0' unless $has_mime_version;
-       }
+       $xfer_encoding = '8bit' if not defined $xfer_encoding;
+       ($message, $xfer_encoding) = apply_transfer_encoding(
+               $message, $xfer_encoding, $target_xfer_encoding);
+       push @xh, "Content-Transfer-Encoding: $xfer_encoding";
+       unshift @xh, 'MIME-Version: 1.0' unless $has_mime_version;
 
        $needs_confirm = (
                $confirm eq "always" or

diff --git a/t/t9001-send-email.sh b/t/t9001-send-email.sh
index 1b474cca28b37786e8f50c1c5fba0d5480bdf984..1da282c415b81215ddb149f6230ff2a5a8eb4c95 100755 (executable)
--- a/t/t9001-send-email.sh
+++ b/t/t9001-send-email.sh
@@ -225,6 +225,8 @@ X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
 In-Reply-To: <unique-message-id@example.com>
 References: <unique-message-id@example.com>
 Reply-To: Reply <reply@example.com>
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -415,6 +417,7 @@ test_expect_success $PREREQ 'reject long lines' '
                --from="Example <nobody@example.com>" \
                --to=nobody@example.com \
                --smtp-server="$(pwd)/fake.sendmail" \
+               --transfer-encoding=8bit \
                $patches longline.patch \
                2>errors &&
        grep longline.patch errors
@@ -609,6 +612,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -653,6 +658,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -688,6 +695,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -714,6 +723,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -748,6 +759,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -779,6 +792,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -810,6 +825,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -845,6 +862,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF
@@ -873,6 +892,8 @@ Subject: [PATCH 1/1] Second.
 Date: DATE-STRING
 Message-Id: MESSAGE-ID-STRING
 X-Mailer: X-MAILER-STRING
+MIME-Version: 1.0
+Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
 
 Result: OK
 EOF