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Re: dots in local parts

2003-08-26 00:09:02
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 00:41:11 -0500 (CDT) "David W. Tamkin" 
<dattier(_at_)panix(_dot_)com> wrote:

I'm not sure in which RFC (or where else) to look this up.  To my
understanding, a period is allowed in the middle of the local part of an
email address but it must be between two characters that are letters of
the
alphabet or digits; it may not be the first character of the local part,
nor
the last one before the at-sign, nor next to another period or any other
punctuation mark.  Is that correct?

Thanks for any help.


I couldn't find anything SPECIFYING a format -- and section 2.3.10 of RFC
2821 (SMTP) seems to be saying that the format of anything before the @
sign is up to the SMTP server at the domain listed after the @. "[...]the
local-part MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host
specified in the domain part of the address."

So, ".34$%^xt!j__...--3&*()[{}](_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com" SHOULD be legal and 
pass
through all systems untouched until it reaches "somewhere.com".

Somehow I doubt it would though. ;-)

I was searching at http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/rfcsearch.pl

G

2.3.10 Mailbox and Address

   As used in this specification, an "address" is a character string
   that identifies a user to whom mail will be sent or a location into
   which mail will be deposited.  The term "mailbox" refers to that
   depository.  The two terms are typically used interchangeably unless
   the distinction between the location in which mail is placed (the
   mailbox) and a reference to it (the address) is important.  An
   address normally consists of user and domain specifications.  The
   standard mailbox naming convention is defined to be "local-
   part(_at_)domain": contemporary usage permits a much broader set of
   applications than simple "user names".  Consequently, and due to a
   long history of problems when intermediate hosts have attempted to
   optimize transport by modifying them, the local-part MUST be
   interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the
   domain part of the address.


-- 
Gerald V. Livingston II

Configure your Email to send TEXT ONLY -- See the following page:
http://expita.com/nomime.html

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