RFC 2048 (rfc2048) - Page 1 of 21

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures

Alternative Format: Original Text Document
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Network Working Group                                           N. Freed
Request for Comments: 2048                                      Innosoft
BCP: 13                                                       J. Klensin
Obsoletes: 1521, 1522, 1590                                          MCI
Category: Best Current Practice                                J. Postel
                                                                     ISI
                                                           November 1996


                 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
                           (MIME) Part Four:
                        Registration Procedures

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
   Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   STD 11, RFC 822, defines a message representation protocol specifying
   considerable detail about US-ASCII message headers, and leaves the
   message content, or message body, as flat US-ASCII text.  This set of
   documents, collectively called the Multipurpose Internet Mail
   Extensions, or MIME, redefines the format of messages to allow for

    (1)   textual message bodies in character sets other than
          US-ASCII,

    (2)   an extensible set of different formats for non-textual
          message bodies,

    (3)   multi-part message bodies, and

    (4)   textual header information in character sets other than
          US-ASCII.

   These documents are based on earlier work documented in RFC 934, STD
   11, and RFC 1049, but extends and revises them.  Because RFC 822 said
   so little about message bodies, these documents are largely
   orthogonal to (rather than a revision of) RFC 822.









Freed, et. al.           Best Current Practice
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