RFC 1342 (rfc1342) - Page 1 of 7

Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Internet Message Headers

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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Network Working Group                                           K. Moore
Request for Comments: 1342                       University of Tennessee
                                                               June 1992


      Representation of Non-ASCII Text in Internet Message Headers

Status of this Memo

   This RFC specifies an IAB standards track protocol for the Internet
   community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.
   Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
   Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This memo describes an extension to the message format defined in [1]
   (known to the IETF Mail Extensions Working Group as "RFC 1341"), to
   allow the representation of character sets other than ASCII in RFC
   822 message headers.  The extensions described were designed to be
   highly compatible with existing Internet mail handling software, and
   to be easily implemented in mail readers that support RFC 1341.

Introduction

   RFC 1341 describes a mechanism for denoting textual body parts which
   are coded in various character sets, as well as methods for encoding
   such body parts as sequences of printable ASCII characters.  This
   memo describes similar techniques to allow the encoding of non-ASCII
   text in various portions of a RFC 822 [2] message header, in a manner
   which is unlikely to confuse existing message handling software.

   Like the encoding techniques described in RFC 1341, the techniques
   outlined here were designed to allow the use of non-ASCII characters
   in message headers in a way which is unlikely to be disturbed by the
   quirks of existing Internet mail handling programs.  In particular,
   some mail relaying programs are known to (a) delete some message
   header fields while retaining others, (b) rearrange the order of
   addresses in To or Cc fields, (c) rearrange the (vertical) order of
   header fields, and/or (d) "wrap" message headers at different places
   than those in the original message.  In addition, some mail reading
   programs are known to have difficulty correctly parsing message
   headers which, while legal according to RFC 822, make use of
   backslash-quoting to "hide" special characters such as "
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