RFC - 2047

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text

Original:	ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2047.txt
Authors:	K. Moore [University of Tennessee]
Date:	November 1996
Category:	Draft Standard

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Obsoletes:
RFC-1590	Media Type Registration Procedure (Obsoleted by RFC-2048 -> RFC-4288; -> RFC-4289, RFC-2049draft, RFC-2047draft, RFC-2045draft, RFC-2046draft)
RFC-1522	MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Two: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text (Obsoleted by RFC-2048 -> RFC-4288; -> RFC-4289, RFC-2049draft, RFC-2047draft, RFC-2045draft, RFC-2046draft)
RFC-1521	MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies (Obsoleted by RFC-2048 -> RFC-4288; -> RFC-4289, RFC-2049draft, RFC-2047draft, RFC-2045draft, RFC-2046draft) (Updated by RFC-1590)

Updated by:
RFC-2231prop	MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations
RFC-2184	MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations (Obsoleted by RFC-2231prop)

Referred by:	71 RFC
Refers to:	6 RFC

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Status

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

STD 11, RFC 822^std11(-> 2822^prop), 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^hist, but extends and revises them. Because RFC 822^std11(-> 2822^prop) said so little about message bodies, these documents are largely orthogonal to (rather than a revision of) RFC 822^std11(-> 2822^prop).

This particular document is the third document in the series. It describes extensions to RFC 822^std11(-> 2822^prop) to allow non-US-ASCII text data in Internet mail header fields.

Other documents in this series include:

• RFC 2045^draft, which specifies the various headers used to describe the structure of MIME messages.
• RFC 2046^draft, which defines the general structure of the MIME media typing system and defines an initial set of media types,
• RFC 2048(-> 4289 | 4288), which specifies various IANA registration procedures for MIME-related facilities, and
• RFC 2049^draft, which describes MIME conformance criteria and provides some illustrative examples of MIME message formats, acknowledgements, and the bibliography.

These documents are revisions of RFCs 1521(-> 2049^draft | 2048(-> 4289 | 4288) | 2047^draft | 2046^draft | 2045^draft), 1522(-> 2049^draft | 2048(-> 4289 | 4288) | 2047^draft | 2046^draft | 2045^draft), and 1590(-> 2049^draft | 2048(-> 4289 | 4288) | 2047^draft | 2046^draft | 2045^draft), which themselves were revisions of RFCs 1341(-> 1521(-> 2049^draft | 2048(-> 4289 | 4288) | 2047^draft | 2046^draft | 2045^draft)) and 1342(-> 1522(-> 2049^draft | 2048(-> 4289 | 4288) | 2047^draft | 2046^draft | 2045^draft)). An appendix in RFC 2049^draft describes differences and changes from previous versions.

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