Re: 2822upd-04 line length limits

On 1/26/08 at 10:47 PM -0500, Bruce Lilly wrote:

>Section 2.1.1 states in part:
>
>      Again, even though this limitation is
>    put on messages, it is incumbant upon implementations which display
>    messages to handle an arbitrarily large number of characters in a
>    line (certainly at least up to the 998 character limit) for the sake
>    of robustness.
>
>[off-topic] "incumbant" should be "incumbent".  A spell-checker can 
>find this and many other similar errors in the text...

[off-topic] A spell-checker found exactly *one* similar error in the text...

>No!  The MIME RFCs specifically state that lines (in header or body) 
>which use MIME encoding are limited to 76 (N.B. not 78 or 998) 
>characters.

I agree with Frank's comments in later messages with regard to this 
(and 3.5 below): MIME can extend (or limit) this document in any way 
it seems fit. However, it most certainly is incumbent upon 
implementations to deal with longer lines than MIME allows. I don't 
think you're going to find much support at all for your position.

>Section 2.3 states in part (I'll address the other part in a 
>separate message):
>
>       Note: As was stated earlier, there are other documents,
>       specifically the MIME documents ([RFC2045], [RFC2046], [RFC2049],
>       [RFC4288], [RFC4289]), that extend this specification to allow for
>       different sorts of message bodies.  Again, these mechanisms are
>       beyond the scope of this document.
>
>Note (as stated above) that the MIME RFCs *limit* line lengths to 76 
>characters when MIME encoding is used.  The text "extend this 
>specification" might be misinterpreted (76 characters is a 
>*limitation*, not an *extension*) w.r.t. line length limits.  At a 
>minimum, some clarification of this point is needed in the draft 
>text.

Happy to clarify.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102