|
|
1.1 ! root 1: .\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California. ! 2: .\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement ! 3: .\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution. ! 4: .\" ! 5: .\" @(#)mail7.nr 6.1 (Berkeley) 5/23/86 ! 6: .\" ! 7: .sh 1 "Format of messages" ! 8: .pp ! 9: This section describes the format of messages. ! 10: Messages begin with a ! 11: .i from ! 12: line, which consists of the word ! 13: .q From ! 14: followed by a user name, followed by anything, followed by ! 15: a date in the format returned by the ! 16: .i ctime ! 17: library routine described in section 3 of the Unix Programmer's ! 18: Manual. A possible ! 19: .i ctime ! 20: format date is: ! 21: .(l ! 22: Tue Dec 1 10:58:23 1981 ! 23: .)l ! 24: The ! 25: .i ctime ! 26: date may be optionally followed by a single space and a ! 27: time zone indication, which ! 28: should be three capital letters, such as PDT. ! 29: .pp ! 30: Following the ! 31: .i from ! 32: line are zero or more ! 33: .i "header field" ! 34: lines. ! 35: Each header field line is of the form: ! 36: .(l ! 37: name: information ! 38: .)l ! 39: .i Name ! 40: can be anything, but only certain header fields are recognized as ! 41: having any meaning. The recognized header fields are: ! 42: .i article-id , ! 43: .i bcc , ! 44: .i cc , ! 45: .i from , ! 46: .i reply-to , ! 47: .i sender , ! 48: .i subject , ! 49: and ! 50: .i to . ! 51: Other header fields are also significant to other systems; see, ! 52: for example, the current Arpanet message standard for much more ! 53: information on this topic. ! 54: A header field can be continued onto following lines by making the ! 55: first character on the following line a space or tab character. ! 56: .pp ! 57: If any headers are present, they must be followed by a blank line. ! 58: The part that follows is called the ! 59: .i body ! 60: of the message, and must be ASCII text, not containing null characters. ! 61: Each line in the message body must be no longer than 512 characters and ! 62: terminated with an ASCII newline character. ! 63: If binary data must be passed through the mail system, it is suggested ! 64: that this data be encoded in a system which encodes six bits into ! 65: a printable character (i.e.: uuencode). ! 66: For example, one could use the upper and lower case letters, the digits, ! 67: and the characters comma and period to make up the 64 characters. ! 68: Then, one can send a 16-bit binary number ! 69: as three characters. These characters should be packed into lines, ! 70: preferably lines about 70 characters long as long lines are transmitted ! 71: more efficiently. ! 72: .pp ! 73: The message delivery system always adds a blank line to the end of ! 74: each message. This blank line must not be deleted. ! 75: .pp ! 76: The UUCP message delivery system sometimes adds a blank line to ! 77: the end of a message each time it is forwarded through a machine. ! 78: .pp ! 79: It should be noted that some network transport protocols enforce ! 80: limits to the lengths of messages.
This archive runs on limited infrastructure. Preserving old code on modern bandwidth. Automated agents are requested to crawl responsibly.