RFC561

 RFC # 561                           Abhay Bhushan (AKB) MIT-DMCG
 NIC # 18516                          Ken Pogran (KP) MIT-MULTICS
                                    Ray Tomlinson (RST) BBN-TENEX
                                          Jim White (JEW) SRI-ARC
                                                   5 September 73

                Standardizing Network Mail Headers

 One of the deficiences of the current FTP mail protocol is that
 it makes no provision for the explicit specification of such
 header information as author, title, and date.  Many systems
 send that information, but each in a different format.  One
 fairly serious result of this lack of standardization is that
 it's next to impossible for a system or user program to
 intelligently process incoming mail.                              

 Although the long-term solution to the problem is probably to
 add commands for specifying such information to the mail
 protocol command space (as suggested in RFC 524 -- 17140,), we
 hereby propose a more quickly implemented solution for the
 interim.                                                          

 We suggest that the text of network mail, whether transmitted
 over the FTP telnet connection (via the MAIL command) or over a
 separate data connection (with the MLFL command), be governed by
 the syntax below:                                                 

    Example:                                                      

       From: White at SRI-ARC
       Date: 24 JUL 1973 1527-PDT
       Subject: Multi-Site Journal Meeting Announcement
       NIC: 17996
       
       At 10 AM Wednesday 25-JULY there will be a meeting
       to discuss a Multi-Site Journal in the context of
       the Utility.  Y'all be here.                              

    Formal Syntax:                                               

       <mailtext>    ::= <header> <CRLF> <message>               
       <header>      ::= <headeritem> ! <headeritem> <header>    
       <headeritem>  ::= <item> <CRLF>                           
       <item>        ::= <authoritem> ! <dateitem> !
                         <subjectitem> ! <miscitem>              

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 NWG/RFC# 561                   AKB KP RST JEW 5-SEP-73 11:19  18516
 Standardizing Network Mail Headers           RFC 561 / NIC 18516

       <authoritem>  ::= FROM: <SP> <user> <SP> AT <SP> <host>   
       <dateitem>    ::= DATE: <SP> <date> <SP>  - <zone>  
       <subjectitem> ::= SUBJECT: <SP> <line>                    
       <miscitem>    ::= <keyword> : <SP> <line>                 
       <date>        ::= <vdate> ! <tdate>                       
       <vdate>       ::= <dayofmonth> <SP> <vmonth> <SP> <vyear>
                                                                
       <tdate>       ::= <tmonth> / <dayofmonth> / <tyear>      
       <dayofmonth>  ::= one or two decimal digits              
       <vmonth>      ::= JAN ! FEB ! MAR ! APR ! MAY ! JUN !
                         JUL ! AUG ! SEP ! OCT ! NOV ! DEC      
       <tmonth>      ::= one or two decimal digits              
       <vyear>       ::= four decimal digits                    
       <tyear>       ::= two decimal digits                     
       <zone>        ::= EST ! EDT ! CST ! CDT ! MST ! MDT !
                         PST ! PDT ! GMT ! GDT                  
               ::= four decimal digits                    
       <user>        ::= <word>                                 
       <host>        ::= a standard host name                   
       <message>     ::= <line> <CRLF> ! <line> <CRLF> <message>
                                                                
       <keyword>     ::= <word>                                 
       <line>        ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII
                         characters except CR and LF            
       <word>        ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII
                         characters except CR, LF, and SP       
       <CRLF>        ::= CR LF                                  
       <SP>          ::= space                                  

    Please note the following:                                  

       (1) <authoritem>, <dateitem>, and <subjectitem> may each
       appear at most once in <header>; <miscitem> may occur any
       number of times.  The order of <authoritem>, <dateitem>,
       and <subjectitem> is insignificant, but they must proceed
       all occurrences of <miscitem>.                           
       (2) The case (upper or lower) of keywords -- specifically,
       'FROM', 'DATE', 'SUBJECT' ,'AT', <host>, <zone>, <vmonth>
       and <keyword> -- is insignificant.  Although 'FROM', for
       example, appears in upper-case in the formal syntax above,
       in the header of an actual message it may appear as 'From'
       (as in the example), or 'from', or 'FrOm', etc.          
       (3) No attempt has been made to legislate the format of
       <user>, except to exclude spaces from it.                
       (4) The time has no internal punctuation.                
       (5) No provision is made for multiple authors.           

 We recommend that mail-sending subsystems which prefix header
 information to the text of the user's message be modified

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 NWG/RFC# 561                   AKB KP RST JEW 5-SEP-73 11:19  18516
 Standardizing Network Mail Headers           RFC 561 / NIC 18516

 appropriately, and that other hosts recommend the above
 conventions to their users.                                    

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