Thus spake Dan Frakes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, circa 12/6/2002 2:20 AM: > Well, it's not just a guideline. Many (if not most) mail servers will break > lines for you, even if your mail client doesn't.
This may have been the case at one time, but such servers that still exist are badly broken. The relevant RFCs are quite clear on this. According to RFC2821 <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt>: The maximum total length of a text line including the <CRLF> is 1000 characters (not counting the leading dot duplicated for transparency). This number may be increased by the use of SMTP Service Extensions. This is carried over from its predecessor RFC821, written by "God" himself, Jonathan B. Postel <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc821.txt>: The maximum total length of a text line including the <CRLF> is 1000 characters (but not counting the leading dot duplicated for transparency). This is why RFC2646 <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2646.txt> mentions "lines of no more than 997 characters (by convention usually no more than 80)." This RFC also discusses the danger of hard wrapping (including the increasing popularity of small devices that display FEWER than 80 characters per line) and covers proper handling of lines beginning with "From " using "space stuffing" similar to the dot stuffing specified by RFC821. I would encourage the Entourage team to look into RFC2646. (I would LIKE to encourage them to "visit" the Exchange/Outlook team with baseball bats, too, but that wouldn't be right...) -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
