RFC 1557 (rfc1557) - Page 1 of 5

Korean Character Encoding for Internet Messages

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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Network Working Group                                            U. Choi
Request for Comments: 1557                                       K. Chon
Category: Informational                                            KAIST
                                                                 H. Park
                                                     Solvit Chosun Media
                                                           December 1993


            Korean Character Encoding for Internet Messages

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Introduction

   This document describes the encoding method being used to represent
   Korean characters in both header and body part of the Internet mail
   messages [RFC 822].  This encoding method was specified in 1991, and
   has since then been used.  It has now widely being used in Korean IP
   networks.

   This document also describes the name of the encoding method which is
   to be used in order to match the message header and body format of
   MIME [MIME1, MIME2].

   This document describes only the encoding method for plain text.
   Other text subtypes, rich text and similar forms of text, are beyond
   the scope of this document.

Description

   It is assumed that the starting code of the message is ASCII.  ASCII
   and Korean characters can be distinguished by use of the shift
   function.  For example, the code SO will alert us that the upcoming
   bytes will be a Korean character as defined in KSC 5601.  To return
   to ASCII the SI code is used.

   Therefore, the escape sequence, shift function and character set used
   in a message are as follows:

           SO           KSC 5601
           SI           ASCII
           ESC $ ) C    Appears once in the beginning of a line
                            before any appearance of SO characters.




Choi, Chon & Park
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