Return to mail7.nr CVS log

Up to [Research Unix] / researchv10no / lbin / Mail / manual

Annotation of researchv10no/lbin/Mail/manual/mail7.nr, revision 1.1.1.1

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