[bug-mailutils] mail --attach documented wrong plus all outbound mail assumed ASCII

[積丹尼 Dan Jacobson]

Problem:
$ echo 中|mutt -s test jidanni
$ echo 中|mail.mailutils -s test jidanni

other mailers put

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

into the headers, mail.mailutils does not.

Man page has
--content-type=TYPE
set content type for subsequent --attach options
and
--encoding=NAME
set encoding for subsequent --attach options

OK. Let's see what

echo 中|mail.mailutils --content-type='text/plain; charset=utf-8' --encoding=8-big -s test jidanni

does.

Result: nothing.
Just like it said it is for attachments.

OK,
let's try
-a, --append=HEADER: VALUE append given header to the message being
sent

echo 中|mail.mailutils \
-a MIME-Version: 1.0 \
-a Content-Type: 'text/plain; charset=utf-8' \
-a Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit \
-s test jidanni

mail.mailutils: Cannot parse address `text/plain; charset=utf-8' (while expanding `text/plain; charset=utf-8'): Malformed email address

OK maybe then let's try

echo 中|mail.mailutils \
-a 'MIME-Version: 1.0' \
-a 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8' \
-a 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit' \
-s test jidanni

which works.

Anyway, your man page
-a, --append=HEADER: VALUE append given header to the message being
sent
should be
-a, --append="HEADER: VALUE" append given header to the message being
sent
OK?
Furthermore the man page and Info pages should have a prominent warning
that for anything other than ASCII mails, mail.mailutils will send out
invalid mails unless one manually adds headers. And add an example with
at least the three above headers and possibly also
Content-Disposition: inline .

mail.mailutils (GNU Mailutils) 3.1.1