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