Re: header folding

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <[email protected]> Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:40:56 +0900
Newsgroups gmane.comp.python.mime.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Glenn Linderman writes:

 > To me, "wrap" means to divide and join as necessary a set of lines 
 > (sometimes/often a paragraph) to achieve some number of similar length 
 > lines, not to exceed a line length limit, with possibly a shorter one at 
 > the end.

Typically such usage is in contexts where a paragraph is represented
as a single physical line, though.  Your "set" is not part of "wrap"
in my dialect.

 > I think that if these terms are defined in the RFCs, that those 
 > definitions should be preferred to mine.

"Fold" is defined per RFC 5322.  The others don't seem to be.

I think "fold" should be used for the well-defined operation of header
folding (RFC 5322) and also for the well-defined operation of
"inserting a soft linebreak" in quoted-printable bodies (RFC 2045).
I'm happy with whatever usage others prefer for the other operations.