Key strings in headers

[Anonymous]

I am writing an email program that needs to send a key string in
a header field that will be returned upon reply to the message.
I've checked all the RFCs I can find and have found no explicit
provision to accomplish this. I could embed the string in the
message body with delimiters but I would rather avoid it if I can.
Does anyone have an alternate scheme that would work with
all major mail client vendors?

Dave

[Dave]

Thanks. I suspected as much. Unfortunately I can't use the subject header
which leaves the message body.

I had some luck with replying to a message that had malformed
Message-ID and References headers (with my string embedded within).
Netscape mail replied with a References header that corresponded to the
Message-ID header I sent. Eudora replied with a Reply-To header that
corresponded to the same sent header. It seems unreliable, though, and I
want a solution that doesn't involve having to check every mail product on
every platform to make sure it responds in a recognizable way.

I once saw a product that would embed the message in a header field
but it would only work if the mail was exchanged between MAPI servers.

Thanks again for the quick response.

Barry Margolin wrote:

> In article <3798F27F...@netviewtech.com>,

> The most common ways to do this are by embedding it in the Subject (most
> replies copy the subject, inserting a prefix like "Re: " at the beginning
> if necessary) or in the From or Reply-to address.
>
> There's no other headers that are typically copied from a message to the
> reply.
>

[Barry Margolin]

In article <3798F27F...@netviewtech.com>,
Anonymous <park...@netviewtech.com> wrote:
>I am writing an email program that needs to send a key string in
>a header field that will be returned upon reply to the message.
>I've checked all the RFCs I can find and have found no explicit
>provision to accomplish this. I could embed the string in the
>message body with delimiters but I would rather avoid it if I can.
>Does anyone have an alternate scheme that would work with
>all major mail client vendors?

The most common ways to do this are by embedding it in the Subject (most
replies copy the subject, inserting a prefix like "Re: " at the beginning
if necessary) or in the From or Reply-to address.

There's no other headers that are typically copied from a message to the
reply.

--
Barry Margolin, bar...@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
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