Return to mail7.nr CVS log

Up to [CSRG BSD Unix] / 43BSDReno / share / doc / usd / 07.Mail

Annotation of 43BSDReno/share/doc/usd/07.Mail/mail7.nr, revision 1.1.1.1

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.