On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Charles Lindsey wrote:
I think we need the term "header line" when speaking of the individual
lines of a header field that has been folded.
With respect, I think that would be a really bad idea, because
non-experts will never interpret it that way. And MUAs often re-fold
header lines anyway.
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Laird Breyer wrote:
A "header line" as you propose is not a semantic unit, since folding
white space can break the information at all sorts of places, and as
the mail winds its way to its destination, folded lines can be
rearranged several times in semantically equivalent ways.
Absolutely!
To me, it's more natural to associate "header line" with the fully unfolded
piece of the header which begins with a field name and colon, since such
a "header line" is invariant under mail transport (as much as possible).
That's how I've been using "header line".
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, william(at)elan.net wrote:
And I do believe believe "header" and "headers" are what majority who talk
about email (and don't write RFCs) use nowdays.
Quite. That's why I started this discussion...
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Laird Breyer wrote:
"header", "message header" or "mail header" refers to the full set of
data before the empty line which marks the beginning of the
body. (Actual layout and spaces play no role).
I think that usage confuses those who talk about email and don't
read/write RFCs.
I do like to put the ':' after a field name to make implicitly clear
that it's a header line being discussed (e.g. let's discuss the
Received: line), even though the RFC (2)288 doesn't consider ':' part
of the field name.
Yes; I do that too.
Regards,
Philip
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10(_at_)cus(_dot_)cam(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Cambridge, England. Phone: +44
1223 334714.