According to my understanding of RFC 5322, the "Wolfgang.Denk" part
is the "display-name", which is just defined as "phrase".
And "4.1. Miscellaneous Obsolete Tokens" reads:
The "period" (or "full stop") character (".") ... appears
here because the period character is currently used in many
messages in the display-name portion of addresses, especially
for initials in names, and therefore must be interpreted
properly.
Sigh. The super-short answer is:
1) You're not technically supposed to send these in new messages (hence
the reason it's under the "obsolete tokens" section). I mean, you
can send them if you quote the phrase (it then becomes a "quoted-string").
The exact definition is a "phrase" is one or more "word"s, which can
be "atom"s (letters, digits, and some punctuation which does NOT include
a period), or a "quoted-string". But a phrase can ALSO be an "obs-phrase",
which is what comes under the 4.1 section.
2) You're supposed to handle them if you get them. We don't (there
was code to handle some cases added to our email parser; AFAICT
it only works if you have a period at the end of a phrase).
So, it's a bug. We should do better. I have a semi-working rewritten
address parser in Lex/Yacc that might handle this better. But it won't
make it in for the next release. The current address parser gives me
headaches every time I look at it.
I'm asking because I receive quite a number of messages using such
addresses (all sent from MS Exchanges systems), which then all need
manual editing for reply.
Hm, at least the Exchange people I deal with seem to have everything quoted
properly.
--Ken
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