source route
Synonyms
mail path
source routing
An electronic mail address which specifies the route the message should take as a sequence of hostnames. It is called a source route because the route is determined at the source of the message rather than at each stage as is now more common. The most common kind of source route is a UUCP style bang path, "foo!bar!baz!fred'. The RFC 822 syntax, "@foo:@bar:fred@baz", is seldom seen because most systems which understand RFC 822 also perform automatic routing based on the destination hostname. A third, intermediate, form is sometimes seen: "fred%baz%bar@foo.com".