Email command rules wrongly match text in the message.

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 05:30:05PM -0000, Brad Bollenbach wrote:
> Related to bug 3927 (which mentions this problem, but it belongs in a
> separate bug report), bug email commands should only be able to
> appear at the beginning of a message or "command block", in the case
> of editing more than one bug at a time.

I agree that having all the commands in the beginning could be a good
idea, but since the email interface is already in use, this transition
should happen gradually, that is, the old way of issuing commands
shouldn't just stop working without a warning.

It's probably worth writing a small spec about it first.

Personally I love the ability to put commands at the end of the mail rather than the beginning.

Requiring that commands appear in one place, the easiest for automated machine handling; at the beginning, is welcomed.

I would also like to suggest that the experience of Debian BTS is applied. There should be a special keyword to *end* commands. See http://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control#comment "<following words: quit ...> On a line by itself, in any case, possibly followed by whitespace, tells the control server to stop processing the message; the remainder of the message can include explanations, signatures or anything else, none of it will be detected by the control server."

An email example:

    From:
    Subject:

    <COMMAND>
    <COMMAND>
    quit
    stop
    thank
    thanks
    thankyou
    thank you
    --

    <The rest of the bug report body; normal text>

Jari, you can use the 'done' command to stop command processing.

-Rob

Noted. But I'd wish the interface would allow similar "end markers" as presented in Debian BTS due to close relation.

I ran into this today when attempting to have a perfectly innocent discussion about some code. My mail happened to contain the following text (I'm posting this through the web interface to avoid the same problem happening here):

        status = efi_call_phys4(efi_phys.set_virtual_address_map,
                                memory_map_size, descriptor_size,
                                descriptor_version, virtual_map);

Launchpad thought that 'status' was a verb directed at it, and decided that it would reject my whole mail because it misunderstood it. This is of course rather frustrating!

I've always found the Debian BTS much better designed for e-mail handling; it's written by and for people who use e-mail for manipulating bugs every day. We discussed the debbugs syntax when Launchpad's syntax was being designed, so the designers were not unaware of it. I realise Launchpad's syntax needed some modifications to cope with multiple tasks on bugs, but to be honest I've always felt that many of the other changes were rather gratuitous. I suppose a redesign would be painful now but it might be better in the long run.