Maximum length of "To:" field
Paul Peavyhouse
I am trying to figure out what the maximum length of the "To:" field is.
I have a rather large Personal Distribution List, and when I send it some
computers kick back a complaint that the "<" and ">" are unbalanced..
Checking the returned email shows that something is truncating the "To:"
field. I don't think Exchange is the problem (I have exchange users in the
Distribution List and they don't get kicked back), I think it is an old UNIX
or VMS mail server problem. How can I work around this so that these old
email servers accept my long "To:" field?
Pv
Ken Wright
This is a feature of the Sendmail program used by Unix systems. In
Sendmail, the maximum default field length is 2,500 characters. The
unbalanced error is returned because Sendmail considers certain characters
special. for example, it uses the angle-brackets (<>) to organize
addresses. The quote character is another one. So, if Sendmail sees a left
angle-bracket, it expects a right angle-bracket. If it doesn't, it sends a
message saying Unbalanced "<".
OK, so how does this happen? The address list in the "to" field is parsed
out until character number 2500 is reached, then Sendmail just quits doing
that. Sendmail has undoubtedly inserted angle-bracket characters in the
address list to help it keep track. So, at character 2490 is
<wrig...@jps.net>. Sendmail parses out <wrightke@ and quits, because
character 2,500 has been reached. Since it sees a left angle-bracket with
no corresponding right angle-bracket, the sender gets the dreaded error
message Unbalanced "<",
There is nothing at all you can do in Exchange to fix this. If you were
using something like Innosoft's PMDF as a relay host, you could fix it, but
Exchange has no idea that this is a problem.
Regards,
Ken
Kendall J. Wright
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Fairfield, CA
Paul Peavyhouse wrote in message
<#RytkLNO...@uppssnewspub04.moswest.msn.net>...
Paul Peavyhouse
Does anyone know of a way to split a long "To:" field into multiple
smaller "To:" fields? If the below problem is true (and from my tests it
is) then I would like to be able to split, say, a 6000 byte "To:" field into
3 separate emails (~2500bytes+~2500bytes+~1000bytes). Is there a way for
exchange server to do this? Is this even necessary? Has anyone else
developed a solution for this?
Pv
Ken Wright wrote in message <34e64...@blushng.jps.net>...