[Info-vax] bizarre SMTP problem

[Michael Moroney]

helbig at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:

>> aka: the + seems to be used as a "," to delimit multiple destinations

>That's what I guessed.  Is this documented anywhere?

I'll guess that MAIL uses a DCL parsing routine to parse that To: line.
In DCL, the "+" works similar to a ",", but they don't always mean the same
thing.  Some DCL commands treat the "+" as combining the inputs into one,
but offhand I can't think of any.

So, it's a matter of using the wrong tool for the job, although it wasn't
"wrong" decades ago when SMTP simply didn't exist, at least not on VMS.
SMTP address parsing doesn't follow DCL rules.

VMS desperately needs a new email client.