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rfc:rfc561
   RFC # 561                           Abhay Bhushan (AKB) MIT-DMCG
   NIC # 18516                          Ken Pogran (KP) MIT-MULTICS
                                      Ray Tomlinson (RST) BBN-TENEX
                                            Jim White (JEW) SRI-ARC
                                                     5 September 73
                  Standardizing Network Mail Headers
   One of the deficiences of the current FTP mail protocol is that
   it makes no provision for the explicit specification of such
   header information as author, title, and date.  Many systems
   send that information, but each in a different format.  One
   fairly serious result of this lack of standardization is that
   it's next to impossible for a system or user program to
   intelligently process incoming mail.                              
   Although the long-term solution to the problem is probably to
   add commands for specifying such information to the mail
   protocol command space (as suggested in RFC 524 -- 17140,), we
   hereby propose a more quickly implemented solution for the
   interim.                                                          
   We suggest that the text of network mail, whether transmitted
   over the FTP telnet connection (via the MAIL command) or over a
   separate data connection (with the MLFL command), be governed by
   the syntax below:                                                 
      Example:                                                      
         From: White at SRI-ARC
         Date: 24 JUL 1973 1527-PDT
         Subject: Multi-Site Journal Meeting Announcement
         NIC: 17996
         
         At 10 AM Wednesday 25-JULY there will be a meeting
         to discuss a Multi-Site Journal in the context of
         the Utility.  Y'all be here.                              
      Formal Syntax:                                               
         <mailtext>    ::= <header> <CRLF> <message>               
         <header>      ::= <headeritem> ! <headeritem> <header>    
         <headeritem>  ::= <item> <CRLF>                           
         <item>        ::= <authoritem> ! <dateitem> !
                           <subjectitem> ! <miscitem>              
                              1
   NWG/RFC# 561                   AKB KP RST JEW 5-SEP-73 11:19  18516
   Standardizing Network Mail Headers           RFC 561 / NIC 18516
         <authoritem>  ::= FROM: <SP> <user> <SP> AT <SP> <host>   
         <dateitem>    ::= DATE: <SP> <date> <SP> <time> - <zone>  
         <subjectitem> ::= SUBJECT: <SP> <line>                    
         <miscitem>    ::= <keyword> : <SP> <line>                 
         <date>        ::= <vdate> ! <tdate>                       
         <vdate>       ::= <dayofmonth> <SP> <vmonth> <SP> <vyear>
                                                                  
         <tdate>       ::= <tmonth> / <dayofmonth> / <tyear>      
         <dayofmonth>  ::= one or two decimal digits              
         <vmonth>      ::= JAN ! FEB ! MAR ! APR ! MAY ! JUN !
                           JUL ! AUG ! SEP ! OCT ! NOV ! DEC      
         <tmonth>      ::= one or two decimal digits              
         <vyear>       ::= four decimal digits                    
         <tyear>       ::= two decimal digits                     
         <zone>        ::= EST ! EDT ! CST ! CDT ! MST ! MDT !
                           PST ! PDT ! GMT ! GDT                  
         <time>        ::= four decimal digits                    
         <user>        ::= <word>                                 
         <host>        ::= a standard host name                   
         <message>     ::= <line> <CRLF> ! <line> <CRLF> <message>
                                                                  
         <keyword>     ::= <word>                                 
         <line>        ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII
                           characters except CR and LF            
         <word>        ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII
                           characters except CR, LF, and SP       
         <CRLF>        ::= CR LF                                  
         <SP>          ::= space                                  
      Please note the following:                                  
         (1) <authoritem>, <dateitem>, and <subjectitem> may each
         appear at most once in <header>; <miscitem> may occur any
         number of times.  The order of <authoritem>, <dateitem>,
         and <subjectitem> is insignificant, but they must proceed
         all occurrences of <miscitem>.                           
         (2) The case (upper or lower) of keywords -- specifically,
         'FROM', 'DATE', 'SUBJECT' ,'AT', <host>, <zone>, <vmonth>
         and <keyword> -- is insignificant.  Although 'FROM', for
         example, appears in upper-case in the formal syntax above,
         in the header of an actual message it may appear as 'From'
         (as in the example), or 'from', or 'FrOm', etc.          
         (3) No attempt has been made to legislate the format of
         <user>, except to exclude spaces from it.                
         (4) The time has no internal punctuation.                
         (5) No provision is made for multiple authors.           
   We recommend that mail-sending subsystems which prefix header
   information to the text of the user's message be modified
                              2
   NWG/RFC# 561                   AKB KP RST JEW 5-SEP-73 11:19  18516
   Standardizing Network Mail Headers           RFC 561 / NIC 18516
   appropriately, and that other hosts recommend the above
   conventions to their users.                                    
                               3
/data/webs/external/dokuwiki/data/pages/rfc/rfc561.txt · Last modified: 1997/09/19 21:09 by 127.0.0.1

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