Custom X-headers and replies

Hi,

is there any way to add custom headers (X-headers I suppose) to an
email in such a way so that when a recipient replies to the message,
the headers are preserved?

Adding X-Headers is trivial, but they are not part of the reply, tested
using various clients.

Perhaps this is according to standard and there is no way to do it ...
but I would like to add a message serial number into the header fields
and have it returned.

This is for an automatic helpdesk tracking system: putting the issue
tracking number into the header would be a simple way to assign
followup to originating issues.

Re: Custom X-headers and replies

wrote in message
news:1131486925.460726.280950@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com.. .

> Perhaps this is according to standard and there is no way to do it ...
> but I would like to add a message serial number into the header fields
> and have it returned.
>
> This is for an automatic helpdesk tracking system: putting the issue
> tracking number into the header would be a simple way to assign
> followup to originating issues.

Put the issue tracking number into the Subject: line so that it gets
preserved in replies. This is the industry-standard method of accomplishing
your goal, and there's no need to re-invent the wheel.

Re: Custom X-headers and replies

Yes, I know that I can do it in the subject.

I was just wondering if it was possible to do it behind the scenes in a
header field.

"No" is a perfectly acceptable answer to this question ... and nothing
I have found in the archives anywhere suggests that there is any answer
other than "no".

Thanks

Re: Custom X-headers and replies

This is a MIME GnuPG-signed message. If you see this text, it means that
your E-mail or Usenet software does not support MIME signed messages.
The Internet standard for MIME PGP messages, RFC 2015, was published in 1996.
To open this message correctly you will need to install E-mail or Usenet
software that supports modern Internet standards.

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-14296-1131493295-0006
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

liam.friel@gmail.com writes:

> Hi,
>
> is there any way to add custom headers (X-headers I suppose) to an
> email in such a way so that when a recipient replies to the message,
> the headers are preserved?

No.

When someone's mail client creates a reply, the mail client has full and
total control over which headers go into the reply message, and what they
contain.

> This is for an automatic helpdesk tracking system: putting the issue
> tracking number into the header would be a simple way to assign
> followup to originating issues.

An even simpler way is to put the tracking number into the return address
itself. That is, set the return address to something like:

From: "Helpdesk"

Many different variations on this approach are possible.

When someone replies, they will always use the message's original return
address.



--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-14296-1131493295-0006
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.7 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBDcTevx9p3GYHlUOIRAjRwAJ9EwJwe923rcjz+yXgkjj5lCTnugQCe Nj6J
tCXO/yhJwBRNmV5qk8D+at8=
=mapZ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-14296-1131493295-0006--

Re: Custom X-headers and replies

Thanks,

I like that return address idea - I'll try it.

Liam