Re: VMS Mail translates incoming tilde character into a dollar sign.

Given the fact that VMSMAIL already filters escape sequences to prevent mail senders from changing your terminal settings, I don't think this was unreasonable behavior. After all, contrast this thinking with the Microsoft engineers who never considered that allowing people to launch applications by double clicking on attachments was tantamount to handing control of your PC to whoever sent you a mail message ! At least the VMS people were considering the possibilities of malicious intent even in this relatively innocent era.

As has been pointed out, actually changing the data stored in the mail folders would have been much much worse.

In 2006, the filtering was changed again. If logical name MAIL$FILTER is defined to "1", the old filtering is restored w.r.t. "}" and "~".

Of course, any such change should have had a "return-to-original-behavior" type setting incorporated immediately, but at least it was done.

It has to be a process logical name, and it has to have value "1":
$ DEFINE/PROCESS MAIL$FILTER 1

I can't understand the thinking here. Surely it would have been just as easily to query LNM$FILE_DEV as LNM$PROCESS ?

Of course, this is easily worked around. Define a SYSTEM wide logical MAIL_FILTER to be the way you want it, and have a DEFINE command in SYS$SYLOGIN copy this settting to a process logical MAIL$FILTER before activating the user's own LOGIN.COM (thus allowing him to override).

The logical name works in V8.3-1H1 (Integrity only).

And one would assume in subsequent OpenVMS Alpha versions.

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Tom Wade | EMail: tee dot wade at eurokom dot ie
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