Charles Lindsey wrote:
In <3E1D8FF1(_dot_)7080607(_at_)alex(_dot_)blilly(_dot_)com> Bruce Lilly
<blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com> writes:
RFC 2047 encoded-words should be decoded for diplay only, and non-ASCII
text should always remain in encoded form in header fields.
Yes, we agree that is the ideal situation, and that any semantic
interpretation should use the original form. Actually, that is an
irrelevance because RFC 2047 is only used for things (phrases, comments,
etc) which do not need to be semantically interpreted.
But for some purposes (followups) the header gets used as the basis of
headers in a new message, and at that point the starting point has to be
the decoded form (since how else is the user to edit the new message).
I don't follow your argument; could you please explain the circumstances
under which some individual would need to edit an encoded-word which is
part of another person's display name in a header field. There is no
need to decode and re-encode in order to use a From field content to generate
a new To, Cc, etc. field.
That is
clearly the intent of RFC 2047. The design flaw, as has been already
mentioned, is decoding encoded-words for transmission.
But nobody is proposing to do that.
The Usefor draft permits it by allowing raw untagged 8-bit data to be
transmitted between generating user agents and gateways.