Re: [hypermail] newbie: installing hypermail

From: Daniel Stenberg <daniel_at_haxx.se_at_hypermail-project.org>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 15:40:06 +0100 (MET)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.43.0201221534400.19540-100000_at_pm1.contactor.se>

On Thu, 13 Dec 2001, De wrote:

> I have received an email with attachment that needs octet-stream. Where
> it's possible to find and download it.

If we ever get a FAQ written for Hypermail, this is the only question we need to add.

No attachment "needs" octet-stream. octet-stream is a label that describes the attachment as being "a stream of octets". What is that you say? Well, the application didn't know any more specifics and thus it identified it as good as possible. It knows it is a stream of octets, nothing else.

So, an attachment coming as "octet-stream" can be pretty much ANYTHING. You have no idea, and neither does anyone else. The only way to figure out is to download the file and see for yourself, ask the person who mailed it or to hope that the mail it came with describes what the attachment was about.

"octet-stream" could just as well be named "I haven't got the slightest idea what this is, but I know it is built up with a series of bytes".

I'm not being long-widing at you personally, but now when I've replied a long answer, I'll start posting a link to this mail when people ask about this in the future! ;-O

-- 
      Daniel Stenberg - http://daniel.haxx.se - +46-705-44 31 77
   ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol

Received on Tue 22 Jan 2002 04:49:15 PM GMT