ietf-822
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local-part conventions and enhancements

2002-05-05 09:06:52

At 10:04 AM 5/3/2002 +0100, Nick Shelness wrote:
Moving on, there is clearly rough consensus that it makes no sense to
restrict domain-names (yes, names) to an ASCII alphabet, though clearly a
pure ASCII encoding is required for backward compatibility.

yes.


  I think that
achieving a similar consensus for local-parts will be difficult. I for
one, will take a lot of convincing.

RFC3192 and RFC3193 focus on using a template for local-part that pertains to encoding telephone information.

However if one looks at the specifications with from a broader perspective they will note that a generic template is provided, and alas, it has an X.400 parametric tone to it.

Simplistically, the template is of the style:

<type> "=" <prime-string> *( "/" <parameter-name> "=" <parameter-value> )

such as:

        FAX=+12027653000/T33S=6377


However it is an optional format, to be used only when the local-part string really needs to be parametric. This is in contrast with X.400, where the structure was required even when it was not useful.

The template also has the advantage of being backward compatible. It does not get in the way of existing local-parts, as far as we could tell.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker  <mailto:dcrocker(_at_)brandenburg(_dot_)com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.850.1850