Rather than fix the reported bug, backslash in commented lines

in alias file is interpreted, I documented that behavior in
the mh-format man page and etc/MailAliases.  This behavior is
unfortunate, but it is a result of the implementation of nmh's
vfgets() function.  That function is used by other callers
that expect the behavior.  [Bug #23553]

diff --git a/etc/MailAliases b/etc/MailAliases
index 5037a54..e659bd2 100644 (file)
--- a/etc/MailAliases
+++ b/etc/MailAliases
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 
 ; everyone: *
 
-; Blank lines and lines beginning with a ; are ignored.
+; Blank lines and lines beginning with a ;, :, or # are ignored.
 ; < file       -> read more aliases from "file"
 ; foo: fum      -> simple replacement
 ; foo: fum, fie -> list replacement
@@ -25,3 +25,7 @@
 ; using a ';' instead of a ':' indicates that the alias should be displayed
 ; along with the addresses used (normally, the addresses replace the alias
 ; completely)
+;
+; A backslash at the end of a line escapes the following newline, even
+; in comment lines.  Thus, comments endinf with a \ will be continued even
+# without a leading ;, :, or # on the followling line.

diff --git a/man/mh-alias.man b/man/mh-alias.man
index ad47699..c88ccd3 100644 (file)
--- a/man/mh-alias.man
+++ b/man/mh-alias.man
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ or
 or
 .RS 5
 .B ;
+|
+.B :
+|
+.B #
 .I comment
 .RE
 .PP
@@ -63,7 +67,9 @@ where:
 .RE
 .PP
 Continuation lines in alias files end with `\\' followed by the newline
-character.
+character.  This applies to comment lines.  Thus, a line following a
+comment line that ends with a `\\' will be treated as a continuation of
+the comment.
 .PP
 .RI \*(lq  Alias\-file \*(rq
 and