Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 00:33:36 -0500 From: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> To: "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Greg Lehey" <grog@lemis.com> Subject: Re: RFC 822 misconceptions Message-ID: <199811050535.AAA16155@laker.net>
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On Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:57:07 +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: >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. I simply wanted to focus your attention on this sentence: The body is simply a sequence of lines containing ASCII characters. And then section 3.4.8 mentions "65 or 72 characters". And this seems to correlate with your insistance that lines wrap around lines lengths near 72. My point is that they mentioned this in regards to header fields, which the message body is not. The message body has already been declared to be a "sequence of lines containing ASCII characters", with no mention of wrapping or support for formatting that would allow double column text to be displayed visually correct at the receiving end. >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. I wan't referring to HTML attachments. I was saying that the message body can be HTML formatted or even RTF for that matter, and not be in conflict with RFC822. > > 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. It's your desire that we wrap lines at 72 chars. And that if you have double column text, you want it to look visually correct at the receiving end. I'm saying that RFC822 doesn't guarantee either. It says that the message body is *unspecified format* except to say that it's ASCII and no line will be longer than 1000 chars (but this is from RFC821 anyway). Anyway, this is similiar to some people's contention that ANY capitalization is shouting. In my view, it's only shouting when it's a whole sentence or paragraph. Occasional words in caps are simply emphasis, and I don't get offended that easily. And I'm not e.e. cummings ;o) Anyway, we'll never have a meeting of the minds. Unix systems measure "uptime" in years, Winblows measures it in minutes. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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