dovecot - Feb 2012 - ENVELOPE mishandling of Subject lines with quote(s)?

Hi,

I am running dovecot version 1.2.9 on a Ubuntu 10.04 server.  To obtain 
the message's header info from this dovecot imap server, I run the 
following imap command on a client side's imap session:

. fetch 88:90 (envelope)

which returns (in this case)

-------------------------------------------------------------

* 88 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:45:35 -0500" "Linear
Actuators Bring Flexibility to Packaging" (("Design World" NIL
"subscription" "designworldonline.com")) (("Design
World" NIL "subscription" "designworldonline.com"))
(("Design World" NIL "subscription"
"designworldonline.com")) ((NIL NIL "dinh"
"flic.net")) NIL NIL NIL "<490779CF.00000E7D at
ak119.mta.exacttarget.com>"))

* 89 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("29 Oct 2008 15:44:03 -0500" {65}
2nd Edition of Brennesholtz/Stupp "Projection Displays" Available
(("Insight Media" NIL "administrator"
"insightmedia.info")) (("Insight Media" NIL
"administrator" "insightmedia.info")) (("Insight
Media" NIL "administrator" "insightmedia.info")) ((NIL
NIL "dinh" "flic.net")) NIL NIL NIL
"<20081029154358.0C359AE169595F1B at insightmedia.info>"))

* 90 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:24:31 +0800 (SGT)" "6
new products Now Online!" (("Global Sources Product Alert" NIL
"paservices" "globalsources.com")) (("Global Sources
Product Alert" NIL "paservices" "globalsources.com"))
(("Global Sources Product Alert" NIL "paservices"
"globalsources.com")) (("Dinh Le" NIL "dinh"
"flic.net")) NIL NIL NIL
"<352725277.1225311871753.JavaMail.web at
fuchsia3.globalsources.com>"))

. OK Fetch completed.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Notice that message 89's Subject line

Subject: 2nd Edition of Brennesholtz/Stupp "Projection Displays"
Available

has quotes and this dovecot's ENVELOPE response failed to get parsed by
a popular Perl module (Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure::Envelope).  I have 
a hunch that this is dovecot's fault but I could be wrong.  How should 
dovecot (or any imap server) deal with Subject lines with quotes inside 
ENVELOPE?

ENVELOPE seems to encapsulate most of the important information and its 
format can be parsed cleanly and quickly.  I prefer to fetch ENVELOP, at 
this point, rather than the other alternatives.

Thanks for your help,

Dinh

Quoting Dinh Le <dinh at flic.net>:

> * 89 FETCH (ENVELOPE ("29 Oct 2008 15:44:03 -0500" {65}
> 2nd Edition of Brennesholtz/Stupp "Projection Displays" Available
>  (("Insight Media" NIL "administrator"
"insightmedia.info"))
> (("Insight Media" NIL "administrator"
"insightmedia.info"))
> (("Insight Media" NIL "administrator"
"insightmedia.info")) ((NIL
> NIL "dinh" "flic.net")) NIL NIL NIL  
> "<20081029154358.0C359AE169595F1B at insightmedia.info>"))
[snip]
> Notice that message 89's Subject line
>
> Subject: 2nd Edition of Brennesholtz/Stupp "Projection Displays"
Available
>
> has quotes and this dovecot's ENVELOPE response failed to get parsed by
> a popular Perl module (Mail::IMAPClient::BodyStructure::Envelope).   
> I have a hunch that this is dovecot's fault but I could be wrong.   
> How should dovecot (or any imap server) deal with Subject lines with  
> quotes inside ENVELOPE?
The subject, because it contains quotes, can't be expressed in a  
quoted string so it is instead sent in a literal string.  In a literal  
string, the data is exactly what appears in the original message.  No  
post-processing mechanism should be stripping quotes or anything from  
this data - it is already in its canonical state.

Dovecot is 100% correct in its return.

michael