Regarding SMTP path length ...

Re: Regarding SMTP path length ...

>     I have a question regarding the maximum path length allowed in RCPT TO
> as well as MAIL FROM.
>     RFC 2821 says, this limit is 256 bytes.
> 
>     Now, does this limit include the escape characters specified in path ?
>     For e.g., if address is <a\@b <at> c.com>, then
>     whether path length calculation should include "\" character ?

yes.

I-D ACTION:draft-moore-auto-email-response-02.txt,.ps

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.

	Title		: Recommendations for Automatic Responses to Electronic 
                          Mail
	Author(s)	: K. Moore
	Filename	: draft-moore-auto-email-response-02.txt,.ps
	Pages		: 18
	Date		: 2003-8-7
	
This memo makes recommendations for software that automatically responds
to incoming electronic mail messages, including 'out of the office' or
'vacation' response generators, mail filtering software, email-based
information services, and other automatic responders.  The purpose of
these recommendations is to discourage undesirable behavior which is
caused or aggravated by such software, to encourage uniform behavior
(where appropriate) among automatic mail responders, and to clear up
some sources of confusion among implementors of automatic email
responders.

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Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
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draft-moore-auto-email-response-02.txt

Please read and review this to see whether you agree with it.

Assuming no objections, I would like to ask the Apps ADs to
Last Call this for Proposed soon.

Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

I just searched the net for instances of Format=Flowed; Delsp=Yes and found
quite a few (all from Apple Mail). Almost all ofr the messages were CTE:
quoted-printable.

This rather misses the whole point of the format, doesn't it?  RFC2646 says
you SHOULD NOT use quoted-printable.

Besides which, quoted-printable already has a mechanism for soft line
breaks.

As Arnt Gulbrandsen pointed out last year, don't MUAs for CJK already need
to handle quoted-printable, multiple charsets, etc.?  Does Format=flowed
really add anything?

For what it's worth, I did find a few Japanese messages with CTE: 7-bit

http://www.egroups.co.jp/message/minnademac/3563?source=1
http://alpha.c.oka-pu.ac.jp/~yokota/gakkai/etc/npdpa02

Re: Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

On 8/15/03 at 11:17 AM -0400, Ken Hirsch wrote:

>This rather misses the whole point of the format, doesn't it? 
>RFC2646 says you SHOULD NOT use quoted-printable.

2646 says that you should not use quoted-printable "unless absolutely 
necessary (for example, non-US-ASCII (8-bit) characters over a 
strictly 7-bit transport such as unextended SMTP)." If the messages 
you looked at had non US-ASCII characters in them, they needed the 
quoted-printable. The important thing is that you don't encode the 
trailing spaces.

>Besides which, quoted-printable already has a mechanism for soft line breaks.

NO! Quoted-printable does *NOT* have a mechanism for soft line breaks 
in the sense of paragraph wrapping the way that format=flowed does. 
Quoted-printable has a mechanism for breaking up a long line of 
characters over multiple lines for transmission purposes. When you 
put it back together, what you get is a single long line that (for 
example) should be displayed with a horizontal scrollbar. It is a 
representation of a single line, not a wrapped paragraph.

>As Arnt Gulbrandsen pointed out last year, don't MUAs for CJK 
>already need to handle quoted-printable, multiple charsets, etc.?

ISO-2022-JP, for example, has no need for quoted-printable. Of 
course, a MIME MUA has to handle quoted-printable, but CJK can be 
sent without QP.

>Does Format=flowed really add anything?

Yes. It adds paragraph wrapping, and more importantly quoted 
paragraph wrapping, while preserving backward compatibility. It is 
the quoted paragraph wrapping (i.e., putting ">" before each line in 
a quoted section.) that is the biggest feature.

pr
--

-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick <at> qualcomm.com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

Re: Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

> ISO-2022-JP, for example, has no need for quoted-printable. Of 
> course, a MIME MUA has to handle quoted-printable, but CJK can be 
> sent without QP.

it doesn't need QP to allow sending through 7bit channels.
QP could still be useful to allow long lines to be transmitted
through channels that impose a maximum line length.

Keith

Re: Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

On 8/15/03 at 1:20 PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:

>>ISO-2022-JP, for example, has no need for quoted-printable. Of 
>>course, a MIME MUA has to handle quoted-printable, but CJK can be 
>>sent without QP.
>
>it doesn't need QP to allow sending through 7bit channels. QP could 
>still be useful to allow long lines to be transmitted through 
>channels that impose a maximum line length.

Why would you need long lines in 2022-JP? Do you send a great deal of 
programming code with Japanese comments at the ends of lines? Do you 
send lots of long-line ASCII art, only using Kanji characters? The 
only reason to use QP is to send long lines that you don't want soft 
paragraph wrapped by format=flowed. Please identify some real use for 
QP when you're using 2022.

pr
--

-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick <at> qualcomm.com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

Re: Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

> Why would you need long lines in 2022-JP?

since I don't speak or read Japanese, I don't pretend to know.
but neither do I assume that those who do speak it don't ever
need to transmit long lines.

Re: Format=flowed delsp=Yes and quoted-printable

On 8/15/03 at 1:26 PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:

>>Why would you need long lines in 2022-JP?
>
>since I don't speak or read Japanese, I don't pretend to know.

OK, then let's do a small thought experiment: Why would you need long 
lines in English (of course, that are not otherwise addressed by 
format=flowed)?
--

-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick <at> qualcomm.com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102