Pradeep:
In response to your beginner questions:
1. S/MIME message is a ascii (text) message or a binary message?
The protected content is MIME encoded, so it can be anything.
2. suppose i have a .gif file which i am sending as attachment of
multipart/related MIME message. the attachment file is base64
transfer-encoded...the resulting MIME message is a binary message or a text
message. can the MIME message be srored as string.
The result of the base64 encoding is a character string.
3. I have a multipart/signed message which i have signed using my private
key...the message is a binary message or text message?
This depends on the encoding that is employed. If base64 is used, then (as
before) the output is a character string. If a binary encoding is used,
then, as expected, a binary message is the result.
Russ