Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:57:07 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Steve Friedrich <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com>, FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: RFC 822 misconceptions Message-ID: <19981105105707.I784@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199811041856.NAA21656@laker.net>; from Steve Friedrich on Wed, Nov 04, 1998 at 01:55:17PM -0500 References: <199811041856.NAA21656@laker.net>
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On Wednesday, 4 November 1998 at 13:55:17 -0500, Steve Friedrich wrote: > I read Greg's "Using Internet mail" at http://www.lemis.com/email.html > > I then went and read RFC822. It appears to me that RFC822 explicitly > states: > > 3.1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION > > A message consists of header fields and, optionally, a body. > The body is simply a sequence of lines containing ASCII charac- > ters. It is separated from the headers by a null line (i.e., a > line with nothing preceding the CRLF). > > The line length issue only applies to header fields, which the message > body is not. There's nothing in the quotation above which addresses this issue. > 3.4.8. FOLDING LONG HEADER FIELDS > > Each header field may be represented on exactly one line con- > sisting of the name of the field and its body, and terminated > by a CRLF; this is what the parser sees. For readability, the > field-body portion of long header fields may be "folded" onto > multiple lines of the actual field. "Long" is commonly inter- > preted to mean greater than 65 or 72 characters. The former > length serves as a limit, when the message is to be viewed on > most simple terminals which use simple display software; how- > ever, the limit is not imposed by this standard. > > Note: Some display software often can selectively fold lines, > to suit the display terminal. In such cases, sender- > provided folding can interfere with the display > software. > > Can anyone point out where I have misinterpreted the RFC?? Well, you've quoted two sections of a very long document. I can't see what relevance they have to the issue at hand. > It appears to me that RFC822 does not preclude HTML formatting, Indeed. To quote: Note: This standard is NOT intended to dictate the internal for- mats used by sites, the specific message system features that they are expected to support, or any of the charac- teristics of user interface programs that create or read messages. At no point do I say that HTML attachments are prohibited by the RFCs. In http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html, I make a recommendation not to use them, with certain exceptions. Use HTML attachments only for web pages. Many mailers allow you to send messages in text/html format by default. HTML is not an appropriate format for mail messages: it's intended for the Web. Of course, if you want to send somebody a web page, this is the way to do it. > or lines longer than 72 chars. RFC 822 doesn't say this, either. As you can see from http://www.lemis.com/email/email-rfc.html, the maximum line length is specified in RFC 821: text line The maximum total length of a text line including the <CRLF> is 1000 characters (but not counting the leading dot duplicated for transparency). This corresponds to a paragraph of about 14 lines of conventional 70 character text. It's quite possible to exceed this limit with Microsoft's mail conventions. > I am not suggesting that we can't/shouldn't, by convention, use > Greg's suggestions, just that he can't use RFC822 to back up his > desire. It's not a "desire", it's in the specifications. And at no time did I quote RFC 822 in this context. You appear to have misread one web page and not read the other. Maybe you'd like to comment on the content rather than on your misinterpretation of it. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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