4.4.5 The addresses file

This file contains mappings between submitter IDs and corresponding e-mail addresses.

When a PR comes in without a submitter ID (if someone sends unformatted e-mail to the PR submission email address), GNATS will try to derive the submitter ID from the address in the "From:" header. The entries in this file consist of two fields, separated by a colon:

submitter-id:address-fragment

submitter-id

A valid submitter ID

address-fragment

Part of, or all of the e-mail address to be matched

Here is an example of an addresses file:

# Addresses for Yoyodine Inc
yoyodine:yoyodine.com
yoyodine:yoyodine.co.uk
# Addresses for Foobar Inc.
foobar1:sales.foobar.com
foobar2:admin.foobar.com
foobar3:clark@research.foobar.com

GNATS checks each line in the addresses file, comparing address-fragment to the end of the "From:" header, until it finds a match. If no match is found, GNATS uses the default submitter ID.

You can only have one address fragment per line, but you can have more than one line for a given submitter ID. An address fragment can be a domain (i.e. yoyodine.com), a machine location (admin.foobar.com), or a full e-mail address (clark@research.foobar.com).

GNATS can match addresses in three e-mail formats:

‘From: name@address.com’

The address by itself without a full name, not enclosed in brackets

‘From: Real Person <name@address.com>’

A full name (optional, with or without quotation marks), followed by the address enclosed in angle brackets

‘From: name@address.com (Real Person)’

An address, followed by a name or comment in parentheses

If GNATS sees other e-mail address formats, it uses the default submitter ID.