RFC 5322
Internet Message Format
Pages: 57
Draft Standard
→ Errata
Obsoletes: 2822
Updates: 4021
Updated by: 6854
Draft Standard
→ Errata
Obsoletes: 2822
Updates: 4021
Updated by: 6854
Part 2 of 3 – Pages 10 to 38
3. Syntax
3.1. Introduction
The syntax as given in this section defines the legal syntax of Internet messages. Messages that are conformant to this specification MUST conform to the syntax in this section. If there are options in this section where one option SHOULD be generated, that is indicated either in the prose or in a comment next to the syntax. For the defined expressions, a short description of the syntax and use is given, followed by the syntax in ABNF, followed by a semantic analysis. The following primitive tokens that are used but otherwise unspecified are taken from the "Core Rules" of [RFC5234], Appendix B.1: CR, LF, CRLF, HTAB, SP, WSP, DQUOTE, DIGIT, ALPHA, and VCHAR. In some of the definitions, there will be non-terminals whose names start with "obs-". These "obs-" elements refer to tokens defined in the obsolete syntax in section 4. In all cases, these productions are to be ignored for the purposes of generating legal Internet messages and MUST NOT be used as part of such a message. However, when interpreting messages, these tokens MUST be honored as part of the legal syntax. In this sense, section 3 defines a grammar for the generation of messages, with "obs-" elements that are to be ignored, while section 4 adds grammar for the interpretation of messages.3.2. Lexical Tokens
The following rules are used to define an underlying lexical analyzer, which feeds tokens to the higher-level parsers. This section defines the tokens used in structured header field bodies. Note: Readers of this specification need to pay special attention to how these lexical tokens are used in both the lower-level and higher-level syntax later in the document. Particularly, the white space tokens and the comment tokens defined in section 3.2.2 get used in the lower-level tokens defined here, and those lower- level tokens are in turn used as parts of the higher-level tokens defined later. Therefore, white space and comments may be allowed in the higher-level tokens even though they may not explicitly appear in a particular definition.3.2.1. Quoted characters
Some characters are reserved for special interpretation, such as delimiting lexical tokens. To permit use of these characters as uninterpreted data, a quoting mechanism is provided.
quoted-pair = ("\" (VCHAR / WSP)) / obs-qp
Where any quoted-pair appears, it is to be interpreted as the
character alone. That is to say, the "\" character that appears as
part of a quoted-pair is semantically "invisible".
Note: The "\" character may appear in a message where it is not
part of a quoted-pair. A "\" character that does not appear in a
quoted-pair is not semantically invisible. The only places in
this specification where quoted-pair currently appears are
ccontent, qcontent, and in obs-dtext in section 4.
3.2.2. Folding White Space and Comments
White space characters, including white space used in folding
(described in section 2.2.3), may appear between many elements in
header field bodies. Also, strings of characters that are treated as
comments may be included in structured field bodies as characters
enclosed in parentheses. The following defines the folding white
space (FWS) and comment constructs.
Strings of characters enclosed in parentheses are considered comments
so long as they do not appear within a "quoted-string", as defined in
section 3.2.4. Comments may nest.
There are several places in this specification where comments and FWS
may be freely inserted. To accommodate that syntax, an additional
token for "CFWS" is defined for places where comments and/or FWS can
occur. However, where CFWS occurs in this specification, it MUST NOT
be inserted in such a way that any line of a folded header field is
made up entirely of WSP characters and nothing else.
FWS = ([*WSP CRLF] 1*WSP) / obs-FWS
; Folding white space
ctext = %d33-39 / ; Printable US-ASCII
%d42-91 / ; characters not including
%d93-126 / ; "(", ")", or "\"
obs-ctext
ccontent = ctext / quoted-pair / comment
comment = "(" *([FWS] ccontent) [FWS] ")"
CFWS = (1*([FWS] comment) [FWS]) / FWS
Throughout this specification, where FWS (the folding white space token) appears, it indicates a place where folding, as discussed in section 2.2.3, may take place. Wherever folding appears in a message (that is, a header field body containing a CRLF followed by any WSP), unfolding (removal of the CRLF) is performed before any further semantic analysis is performed on that header field according to this specification. That is to say, any CRLF that appears in FWS is semantically "invisible". A comment is normally used in a structured field body to provide some human-readable informational text. Since a comment is allowed to contain FWS, folding is permitted within the comment. Also note that since quoted-pair is allowed in a comment, the parentheses and backslash characters may appear in a comment, so long as they appear as a quoted-pair. Semantically, the enclosing parentheses are not part of the comment; the comment is what is contained between the two parentheses. As stated earlier, the "\" in any quoted-pair and the CRLF in any FWS that appears within the comment are semantically "invisible" and therefore not part of the comment either. Runs of FWS, comment, or CFWS that occur between lexical tokens in a structured header field are semantically interpreted as a single space character.3.2.3. Atom
Several productions in structured header field bodies are simply strings of certain basic characters. Such productions are called atoms. Some of the structured header field bodies also allow the period character (".", ASCII value 46) within runs of atext. An additional "dot-atom" token is defined for those purposes. Note: The "specials" token does not appear anywhere else in this specification. It is simply the visible (i.e., non-control, non- white space) characters that do not appear in atext. It is provided only because it is useful for implementers who use tools that lexically analyze messages. Each of the characters in specials can be used to indicate a tokenization point in lexical analysis.
atext = ALPHA / DIGIT / ; Printable US-ASCII
"!" / "#" / ; characters not including
"$" / "%" / ; specials. Used for atoms.
"&" / "'" /
"*" / "+" /
"-" / "/" /
"=" / "?" /
"^" / "_" /
"`" / "{" /
"|" / "}" /
"~"
atom = [CFWS] 1*atext [CFWS]
dot-atom-text = 1*atext *("." 1*atext)
dot-atom = [CFWS] dot-atom-text [CFWS]
specials = "(" / ")" / ; Special characters that do
"<" / ">" / ; not appear in atext
"[" / "]" /
":" / ";" /
"@" / "\" /
"," / "." /
DQUOTE
Both atom and dot-atom are interpreted as a single unit, comprising
the string of characters that make it up. Semantically, the optional
comments and FWS surrounding the rest of the characters are not part
of the atom; the atom is only the run of atext characters in an atom,
or the atext and "." characters in a dot-atom.
3.2.4. Quoted Strings
Strings of characters that include characters other than those
allowed in atoms can be represented in a quoted string format, where
the characters are surrounded by quote (DQUOTE, ASCII value 34)
characters.
qtext = %d33 / ; Printable US-ASCII
%d35-91 / ; characters not including
%d93-126 / ; "\" or the quote character
obs-qtext
qcontent = qtext / quoted-pair
quoted-string = [CFWS]
DQUOTE *([FWS] qcontent) [FWS] DQUOTE
[CFWS]
A quoted-string is treated as a unit. That is, quoted-string is
identical to atom, semantically. Since a quoted-string is allowed to
contain FWS, folding is permitted. Also note that since quoted-pair
is allowed in a quoted-string, the quote and backslash characters may
appear in a quoted-string so long as they appear as a quoted-pair.
Semantically, neither the optional CFWS outside of the quote
characters nor the quote characters themselves are part of the
quoted-string; the quoted-string is what is contained between the two
quote characters. As stated earlier, the "\" in any quoted-pair and
the CRLF in any FWS/CFWS that appears within the quoted-string are
semantically "invisible" and therefore not part of the quoted-string
either.
3.2.5. Miscellaneous Tokens
Three additional tokens are defined: word and phrase for combinations
of atoms and/or quoted-strings, and unstructured for use in
unstructured header fields and in some places within structured
header fields.
word = atom / quoted-string
phrase = 1*word / obs-phrase
unstructured = (*([FWS] VCHAR) *WSP) / obs-unstruct
3.3. Date and Time Specification
Date and time values occur in several header fields. This section
specifies the syntax for a full date and time specification. Though
folding white space is permitted throughout the date-time
specification, it is RECOMMENDED that a single space be used in each
place that FWS appears (whether it is required or optional); some
older implementations will not interpret longer sequences of folding
white space correctly.
date-time = [ day-of-week "," ] date time [CFWS]
day-of-week = ([FWS] day-name) / obs-day-of-week
day-name = "Mon" / "Tue" / "Wed" / "Thu" /
"Fri" / "Sat" / "Sun"
date = day month year
day = ([FWS] 1*2DIGIT FWS) / obs-day
month = "Jan" / "Feb" / "Mar" / "Apr" /
"May" / "Jun" / "Jul" / "Aug" /
"Sep" / "Oct" / "Nov" / "Dec"
year = (FWS 4*DIGIT FWS) / obs-year
time = time-of-day zone
time-of-day = hour ":" minute [ ":" second ]
hour = 2DIGIT / obs-hour
minute = 2DIGIT / obs-minute
second = 2DIGIT / obs-second
zone = (FWS ( "+" / "-" ) 4DIGIT) / obs-zone
The day is the numeric day of the month. The year is any numeric
year 1900 or later.
The time-of-day specifies the number of hours, minutes, and
optionally seconds since midnight of the date indicated.
The date and time-of-day SHOULD express local time.
The zone specifies the offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC,
formerly referred to as "Greenwich Mean Time") that the date and
time-of-day represent. The "+" or "-" indicates whether the time-of-
day is ahead of (i.e., east of) or behind (i.e., west of) Universal
Time. The first two digits indicate the number of hours difference
from Universal Time, and the last two digits indicate the number of
additional minutes difference from Universal Time. (Hence, +hhmm
means +(hh * 60 + mm) minutes, and -hhmm means -(hh * 60 + mm)
minutes). The form "+0000" SHOULD be used to indicate a time zone at
Universal Time. Though "-0000" also indicates Universal Time, it is
used to indicate that the time was generated on a system that may be in a local time zone other than Universal Time and that the date-time contains no information about the local time zone. A date-time specification MUST be semantically valid. That is, the day-of-week (if included) MUST be the day implied by the date, the numeric day-of-month MUST be between 1 and the number of days allowed for the specified month (in the specified year), the time-of-day MUST be in the range 00:00:00 through 23:59:60 (the number of seconds allowing for a leap second; see [RFC1305]), and the last two digits of the zone MUST be within the range 00 through 59.3.4. Address Specification
Addresses occur in several message header fields to indicate senders and recipients of messages. An address may either be an individual mailbox, or a group of mailboxes. address = mailbox / group mailbox = name-addr / addr-spec name-addr = [display-name] angle-addr angle-addr = [CFWS] "<" addr-spec ">" [CFWS] / obs-angle-addr group = display-name ":" [group-list] ";" [CFWS] display-name = phrase mailbox-list = (mailbox *("," mailbox)) / obs-mbox-list address-list = (address *("," address)) / obs-addr-list group-list = mailbox-list / CFWS / obs-group-list A mailbox receives mail. It is a conceptual entity that does not necessarily pertain to file storage. For example, some sites may choose to print mail on a printer and deliver the output to the addressee's desk. Normally, a mailbox is composed of two parts: (1) an optional display name that indicates the name of the recipient (which can be a person or a system) that could be displayed to the user of a mail application, and (2) an addr-spec address enclosed in angle brackets
("<" and ">"). There is an alternate simple form of a mailbox where
the addr-spec address appears alone, without the recipient's name or
the angle brackets. The Internet addr-spec address is described in
section 3.4.1.
Note: Some legacy implementations used the simple form where the
addr-spec appears without the angle brackets, but included the
name of the recipient in parentheses as a comment following the
addr-spec. Since the meaning of the information in a comment is
unspecified, implementations SHOULD use the full name-addr form of
the mailbox, instead of the legacy form, to specify the display
name associated with a mailbox. Also, because some legacy
implementations interpret the comment, comments generally SHOULD
NOT be used in address fields to avoid confusing such
implementations.
When it is desirable to treat several mailboxes as a single unit
(i.e., in a distribution list), the group construct can be used. The
group construct allows the sender to indicate a named group of
recipients. This is done by giving a display name for the group,
followed by a colon, followed by a comma-separated list of any number
of mailboxes (including zero and one), and ending with a semicolon.
Because the list of mailboxes can be empty, using the group construct
is also a simple way to communicate to recipients that the message
was sent to one or more named sets of recipients, without actually
providing the individual mailbox address for any of those recipients.
3.4.1. Addr-Spec Specification
An addr-spec is a specific Internet identifier that contains a
locally interpreted string followed by the at-sign character ("@",
ASCII value 64) followed by an Internet domain. The locally
interpreted string is either a quoted-string or a dot-atom. If the
string can be represented as a dot-atom (that is, it contains no
characters other than atext characters or "." surrounded by atext
characters), then the dot-atom form SHOULD be used and the quoted-
string form SHOULD NOT be used. Comments and folding white space
SHOULD NOT be used around the "@" in the addr-spec.
Note: A liberal syntax for the domain portion of addr-spec is
given here. However, the domain portion contains addressing
information specified by and used in other protocols (e.g.,
[RFC1034], [RFC1035], [RFC1123], [RFC5321]). It is therefore
incumbent upon implementations to conform to the syntax of
addresses for the context in which they are used.
addr-spec = local-part "@" domain
local-part = dot-atom / quoted-string / obs-local-part
domain = dot-atom / domain-literal / obs-domain
domain-literal = [CFWS] "[" *([FWS] dtext) [FWS] "]" [CFWS]
dtext = %d33-90 / ; Printable US-ASCII
%d94-126 / ; characters not including
obs-dtext ; "[", "]", or "\"
The domain portion identifies the point to which the mail is
delivered. In the dot-atom form, this is interpreted as an Internet
domain name (either a host name or a mail exchanger name) as
described in [RFC1034], [RFC1035], and [RFC1123]. In the domain-
literal form, the domain is interpreted as the literal Internet
address of the particular host. In both cases, how addressing is
used and how messages are transported to a particular host is covered
in separate documents, such as [RFC5321]. These mechanisms are
outside of the scope of this document.
The local-part portion is a domain-dependent string. In addresses,
it is simply interpreted on the particular host as a name of a
particular mailbox.
3.5. Overall Message Syntax
A message consists of header fields, optionally followed by a message
body. Lines in a message MUST be a maximum of 998 characters
excluding the CRLF, but it is RECOMMENDED that lines be limited to 78
characters excluding the CRLF. (See section 2.1.1 for explanation.)
In a message body, though all of the characters listed in the text
rule MAY be used, the use of US-ASCII control characters (values 1
through 8, 11, 12, and 14 through 31) is discouraged since their
interpretation by receivers for display is not guaranteed.
message = (fields / obs-fields)
[CRLF body]
body = (*(*998text CRLF) *998text) / obs-body
text = %d1-9 / ; Characters excluding CR
%d11 / ; and LF
%d12 /
%d14-127
The header fields carry most of the semantic information and are defined in section 3.6. The body is simply a series of lines of text that are uninterpreted for the purposes of this specification.3.6. Field Definitions
The header fields of a message are defined here. All header fields have the same general syntactic structure: a field name, followed by a colon, followed by the field body. The specific syntax for each header field is defined in the subsequent sections. Note: In the ABNF syntax for each field in subsequent sections, each field name is followed by the required colon. However, for brevity, sometimes the colon is not referred to in the textual description of the syntax. It is, nonetheless, required. It is important to note that the header fields are not guaranteed to be in a particular order. They may appear in any order, and they have been known to be reordered occasionally when transported over the Internet. However, for the purposes of this specification, header fields SHOULD NOT be reordered when a message is transported or transformed. More importantly, the trace header fields and resent header fields MUST NOT be reordered, and SHOULD be kept in blocks prepended to the message. See sections 3.6.6 and 3.6.7 for more information. The only required header fields are the origination date field and the originator address field(s). All other header fields are syntactically optional. More information is contained in the table following this definition.
fields = *(trace
*optional-field /
*(resent-date /
resent-from /
resent-sender /
resent-to /
resent-cc /
resent-bcc /
resent-msg-id))
*(orig-date /
from /
sender /
reply-to /
to /
cc /
bcc /
message-id /
in-reply-to /
references /
subject /
comments /
keywords /
optional-field)
The following table indicates limits on the number of times each
field may occur in the header section of a message as well as any
special limitations on the use of those fields. An asterisk ("*")
next to a value in the minimum or maximum column indicates that a
special restriction appears in the Notes column.
+----------------+--------+------------+----------------------------+ | Field | Min | Max number | Notes | | | number | | | +----------------+--------+------------+----------------------------+ | trace | 0 | unlimited | Block prepended - see | | | | | 3.6.7 | | resent-date | 0* | unlimited* | One per block, required if | | | | | other resent fields are | | | | | present - see 3.6.6 | | resent-from | 0 | unlimited* | One per block - see 3.6.6 | | resent-sender | 0* | unlimited* | One per block, MUST occur | | | | | with multi-address | | | | | resent-from - see 3.6.6 | | resent-to | 0 | unlimited* | One per block - see 3.6.6 | | resent-cc | 0 | unlimited* | One per block - see 3.6.6 | | resent-bcc | 0 | unlimited* | One per block - see 3.6.6 | | resent-msg-id | 0 | unlimited* | One per block - see 3.6.6 | | orig-date | 1 | 1 | | | from | 1 | 1 | See sender and 3.6.2 | | sender | 0* | 1 | MUST occur with | | | | | multi-address from - see | | | | | 3.6.2 | | reply-to | 0 | 1 | | | to | 0 | 1 | | | cc | 0 | 1 | | | bcc | 0 | 1 | | | message-id | 0* | 1 | SHOULD be present - see | | | | | 3.6.4 | | in-reply-to | 0* | 1 | SHOULD occur in some | | | | | replies - see 3.6.4 | | references | 0* | 1 | SHOULD occur in some | | | | | replies - see 3.6.4 | | subject | 0 | 1 | | | comments | 0 | unlimited | | | keywords | 0 | unlimited | | | optional-field | 0 | unlimited | | +----------------+--------+------------+----------------------------+ The exact interpretation of each field is described in subsequent sections.
3.6.1. The Origination Date Field
The origination date field consists of the field name "Date" followed by a date-time specification. orig-date = "Date:" date-time CRLF The origination date specifies the date and time at which the creator of the message indicated that the message was complete and ready to enter the mail delivery system. For instance, this might be the time that a user pushes the "send" or "submit" button in an application program. In any case, it is specifically not intended to convey the time that the message is actually transported, but rather the time at which the human or other creator of the message has put the message into its final form, ready for transport. (For example, a portable computer user who is not connected to a network might queue a message for delivery. The origination date is intended to contain the date and time that the user queued the message, not the time when the user connected to the network to send the message.)3.6.2. Originator Fields
The originator fields of a message consist of the from field, the sender field (when applicable), and optionally the reply-to field. The from field consists of the field name "From" and a comma- separated list of one or more mailbox specifications. If the from field contains more than one mailbox specification in the mailbox- list, then the sender field, containing the field name "Sender" and a single mailbox specification, MUST appear in the message. In either case, an optional reply-to field MAY also be included, which contains the field name "Reply-To" and a comma-separated list of one or more addresses. from = "From:" mailbox-list CRLF sender = "Sender:" mailbox CRLF reply-to = "Reply-To:" address-list CRLF The originator fields indicate the mailbox(es) of the source of the message. The "From:" field specifies the author(s) of the message, that is, the mailbox(es) of the person(s) or system(s) responsible for the writing of the message. The "Sender:" field specifies the mailbox of the agent responsible for the actual transmission of the message. For example, if a secretary were to send a message for another person, the mailbox of the secretary would appear in the "Sender:" field and the mailbox of the actual author would appear in the "From:" field. If the originator of the message can be indicated
by a single mailbox and the author and transmitter are identical, the
"Sender:" field SHOULD NOT be used. Otherwise, both fields SHOULD
appear.
Note: The transmitter information is always present. The absence
of the "Sender:" field is sometimes mistakenly taken to mean that
the agent responsible for transmission of the message has not been
specified. This absence merely means that the transmitter is
identical to the author and is therefore not redundantly placed
into the "Sender:" field.
The originator fields also provide the information required when
replying to a message. When the "Reply-To:" field is present, it
indicates the address(es) to which the author of the message suggests
that replies be sent. In the absence of the "Reply-To:" field,
replies SHOULD by default be sent to the mailbox(es) specified in the
"From:" field unless otherwise specified by the person composing the
reply.
In all cases, the "From:" field SHOULD NOT contain any mailbox that
does not belong to the author(s) of the message. See also section
3.6.3 for more information on forming the destination addresses for a
reply.
3.6.3. Destination Address Fields
The destination fields of a message consist of three possible fields,
each of the same form: the field name, which is either "To", "Cc", or
"Bcc", followed by a comma-separated list of one or more addresses
(either mailbox or group syntax).
to = "To:" address-list CRLF
cc = "Cc:" address-list CRLF
bcc = "Bcc:" [address-list / CFWS] CRLF
The destination fields specify the recipients of the message. Each
destination field may have one or more addresses, and the addresses
indicate the intended recipients of the message. The only difference
between the three fields is how each is used.
The "To:" field contains the address(es) of the primary recipient(s)
of the message.
The "Cc:" field (where the "Cc" means "Carbon Copy" in the sense of
making a copy on a typewriter using carbon paper) contains the
addresses of others who are to receive the message, though the
content of the message may not be directed at them.
The "Bcc:" field (where the "Bcc" means "Blind Carbon Copy") contains
addresses of recipients of the message whose addresses are not to be
revealed to other recipients of the message. There are three ways in
which the "Bcc:" field is used. In the first case, when a message
containing a "Bcc:" field is prepared to be sent, the "Bcc:" line is
removed even though all of the recipients (including those specified
in the "Bcc:" field) are sent a copy of the message. In the second
case, recipients specified in the "To:" and "Cc:" lines each are sent
a copy of the message with the "Bcc:" line removed as above, but the
recipients on the "Bcc:" line get a separate copy of the message
containing a "Bcc:" line. (When there are multiple recipient
addresses in the "Bcc:" field, some implementations actually send a
separate copy of the message to each recipient with a "Bcc:"
containing only the address of that particular recipient.) Finally,
since a "Bcc:" field may contain no addresses, a "Bcc:" field can be
sent without any addresses indicating to the recipients that blind
copies were sent to someone. Which method to use with "Bcc:" fields
is implementation dependent, but refer to the "Security
Considerations" section of this document for a discussion of each.
When a message is a reply to another message, the mailboxes of the
authors of the original message (the mailboxes in the "From:" field)
or mailboxes specified in the "Reply-To:" field (if it exists) MAY
appear in the "To:" field of the reply since these would normally be
the primary recipients of the reply. If a reply is sent to a message
that has destination fields, it is often desirable to send a copy of
the reply to all of the recipients of the message, in addition to the
author. When such a reply is formed, addresses in the "To:" and
"Cc:" fields of the original message MAY appear in the "Cc:" field of
the reply, since these are normally secondary recipients of the
reply. If a "Bcc:" field is present in the original message,
addresses in that field MAY appear in the "Bcc:" field of the reply,
but they SHOULD NOT appear in the "To:" or "Cc:" fields.
Note: Some mail applications have automatic reply commands that
include the destination addresses of the original message in the
destination addresses of the reply. How those reply commands
behave is implementation dependent and is beyond the scope of this
document. In particular, whether or not to include the original
destination addresses when the original message had a "Reply-To:"
field is not addressed here.
3.6.4. Identification Fields
Though listed as optional in the table in section 3.6, every message SHOULD have a "Message-ID:" field. Furthermore, reply messages SHOULD have "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields as appropriate and as described below. The "Message-ID:" field contains a single unique message identifier. The "References:" and "In-Reply-To:" fields each contain one or more unique message identifiers, optionally separated by CFWS. The message identifier (msg-id) syntax is a limited version of the addr-spec construct enclosed in the angle bracket characters, "<" and ">". Unlike addr-spec, this syntax only permits the dot-atom-text form on the left-hand side of the "@" and does not have internal CFWS anywhere in the message identifier. Note: As with addr-spec, a liberal syntax is given for the right- hand side of the "@" in a msg-id. However, later in this section, the use of a domain for the right-hand side of the "@" is RECOMMENDED. Again, the syntax of domain constructs is specified by and used in other protocols (e.g., [RFC1034], [RFC1035], [RFC1123], [RFC5321]). It is therefore incumbent upon implementations to conform to the syntax of addresses for the context in which they are used. message-id = "Message-ID:" msg-id CRLF in-reply-to = "In-Reply-To:" 1*msg-id CRLF references = "References:" 1*msg-id CRLF msg-id = [CFWS] "<" id-left "@" id-right ">" [CFWS] id-left = dot-atom-text / obs-id-left id-right = dot-atom-text / no-fold-literal / obs-id-right no-fold-literal = "[" *dtext "]" The "Message-ID:" field provides a unique message identifier that refers to a particular version of a particular message. The uniqueness of the message identifier is guaranteed by the host that generates it (see below). This message identifier is intended to be machine readable and not necessarily meaningful to humans. A message identifier pertains to exactly one version of a particular message; subsequent revisions to the message each receive new message identifiers.
Note: There are many instances when messages are "changed", but
those changes do not constitute a new instantiation of that
message, and therefore the message would not get a new message
identifier. For example, when messages are introduced into the
transport system, they are often prepended with additional header
fields such as trace fields (described in section 3.6.7) and
resent fields (described in section 3.6.6). The addition of such
header fields does not change the identity of the message and
therefore the original "Message-ID:" field is retained. In all
cases, it is the meaning that the sender of the message wishes to
convey (i.e., whether this is the same message or a different
message) that determines whether or not the "Message-ID:" field
changes, not any particular syntactic difference that appears (or
does not appear) in the message.
The "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields are used when creating a
reply to a message. They hold the message identifier of the original
message and the message identifiers of other messages (for example,
in the case of a reply to a message that was itself a reply). The
"In-Reply-To:" field may be used to identify the message (or
messages) to which the new message is a reply, while the
"References:" field may be used to identify a "thread" of
conversation.
When creating a reply to a message, the "In-Reply-To:" and
"References:" fields of the resultant message are constructed as
follows:
The "In-Reply-To:" field will contain the contents of the
"Message-ID:" field of the message to which this one is a reply (the
"parent message"). If there is more than one parent message, then
the "In-Reply-To:" field will contain the contents of all of the
parents' "Message-ID:" fields. If there is no "Message-ID:" field in
any of the parent messages, then the new message will have no "In-
Reply-To:" field.
The "References:" field will contain the contents of the parent's
"References:" field (if any) followed by the contents of the parent's
"Message-ID:" field (if any). If the parent message does not contain
a "References:" field but does have an "In-Reply-To:" field
containing a single message identifier, then the "References:" field
will contain the contents of the parent's "In-Reply-To:" field
followed by the contents of the parent's "Message-ID:" field (if
any). If the parent has none of the "References:", "In-Reply-To:",
or "Message-ID:" fields, then the new message will have no
"References:" field.
Note: Some implementations parse the "References:" field to
display the "thread of the discussion". These implementations
assume that each new message is a reply to a single parent and
hence that they can walk backwards through the "References:" field
to find the parent of each message listed there. Therefore,
trying to form a "References:" field for a reply that has multiple
parents is discouraged; how to do so is not defined in this
document.
The message identifier (msg-id) itself MUST be a globally unique
identifier for a message. The generator of the message identifier
MUST guarantee that the msg-id is unique. There are several
algorithms that can be used to accomplish this. Since the msg-id has
a similar syntax to addr-spec (identical except that quoted strings,
comments, and folding white space are not allowed), a good method is
to put the domain name (or a domain literal IP address) of the host
on which the message identifier was created on the right-hand side of
the "@" (since domain names and IP addresses are normally unique),
and put a combination of the current absolute date and time along
with some other currently unique (perhaps sequential) identifier
available on the system (for example, a process id number) on the
left-hand side. Though other algorithms will work, it is RECOMMENDED
that the right-hand side contain some domain identifier (either of
the host itself or otherwise) such that the generator of the message
identifier can guarantee the uniqueness of the left-hand side within
the scope of that domain.
Semantically, the angle bracket characters are not part of the
msg-id; the msg-id is what is contained between the two angle bracket
characters.
3.6.5. Informational Fields
The informational fields are all optional. The "Subject:" and
"Comments:" fields are unstructured fields as defined in section
2.2.1, and therefore may contain text or folding white space. The
"Keywords:" field contains a comma-separated list of one or more
words or quoted-strings.
subject = "Subject:" unstructured CRLF
comments = "Comments:" unstructured CRLF
keywords = "Keywords:" phrase *("," phrase) CRLF
These three fields are intended to have only human-readable content
with information about the message. The "Subject:" field is the most
common and contains a short string identifying the topic of the
message. When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string "Re: " (an abbreviation of the Latin "in re", meaning "in the matter of") followed by the contents of the "Subject:" field body of the original message. If this is done, only one instance of the literal string "Re: " ought to be used since use of other strings or more than one instance can lead to undesirable consequences. The "Comments:" field contains any additional comments on the text of the body of the message. The "Keywords:" field contains a comma- separated list of important words and phrases that might be useful for the recipient.3.6.6. Resent Fields
Resent fields SHOULD be added to any message that is reintroduced by a user into the transport system. A separate set of resent fields SHOULD be added each time this is done. All of the resent fields corresponding to a particular resending of the message SHOULD be grouped together. Each new set of resent fields is prepended to the message; that is, the most recent set of resent fields appears earlier in the message. No other fields in the message are changed when resent fields are added. Each of the resent fields corresponds to a particular field elsewhere in the syntax. For instance, the "Resent-Date:" field corresponds to the "Date:" field and the "Resent-To:" field corresponds to the "To:" field. In each case, the syntax for the field body is identical to the syntax given previously for the corresponding field. When resent fields are used, the "Resent-From:" and "Resent-Date:" fields MUST be sent. The "Resent-Message-ID:" field SHOULD be sent. "Resent-Sender:" SHOULD NOT be used if "Resent-Sender:" would be identical to "Resent-From:". resent-date = "Resent-Date:" date-time CRLF resent-from = "Resent-From:" mailbox-list CRLF resent-sender = "Resent-Sender:" mailbox CRLF resent-to = "Resent-To:" address-list CRLF resent-cc = "Resent-Cc:" address-list CRLF resent-bcc = "Resent-Bcc:" [address-list / CFWS] CRLF resent-msg-id = "Resent-Message-ID:" msg-id CRLF
Resent fields are used to identify a message as having been
reintroduced into the transport system by a user. The purpose of
using resent fields is to have the message appear to the final
recipient as if it were sent directly by the original sender, with
all of the original fields remaining the same. Each set of resent
fields correspond to a particular resending event. That is, if a
message is resent multiple times, each set of resent fields gives
identifying information for each individual time. Resent fields are
strictly informational. They MUST NOT be used in the normal
processing of replies or other such automatic actions on messages.
Note: Reintroducing a message into the transport system and using
resent fields is a different operation from "forwarding".
"Forwarding" has two meanings: One sense of forwarding is that a
mail reading program can be told by a user to forward a copy of a
message to another person, making the forwarded message the body
of the new message. A forwarded message in this sense does not
appear to have come from the original sender, but is an entirely
new message from the forwarder of the message. Forwarding may
also mean that a mail transport program gets a message and
forwards it on to a different destination for final delivery.
Resent header fields are not intended for use with either type of
forwarding.
The resent originator fields indicate the mailbox of the person(s) or
system(s) that resent the message. As with the regular originator
fields, there are two forms: a simple "Resent-From:" form, which
contains the mailbox of the individual doing the resending, and the
more complex form, when one individual (identified in the "Resent-
Sender:" field) resends a message on behalf of one or more others
(identified in the "Resent-From:" field).
Note: When replying to a resent message, replies behave just as
they would with any other message, using the original "From:",
"Reply-To:", "Message-ID:", and other fields. The resent fields
are only informational and MUST NOT be used in the normal
processing of replies.
The "Resent-Date:" indicates the date and time at which the resent
message is dispatched by the resender of the message. Like the
"Date:" field, it is not the date and time that the message was
actually transported.
The "Resent-To:", "Resent-Cc:", and "Resent-Bcc:" fields function
identically to the "To:", "Cc:", and "Bcc:" fields, respectively,
except that they indicate the recipients of the resent message, not
the recipients of the original message.
The "Resent-Message-ID:" field provides a unique identifier for the resent message.3.6.7. Trace Fields
The trace fields are a group of header fields consisting of an optional "Return-Path:" field, and one or more "Received:" fields. The "Return-Path:" header field contains a pair of angle brackets that enclose an optional addr-spec. The "Received:" field contains a (possibly empty) list of tokens followed by a semicolon and a date- time specification. Each token must be a word, angle-addr, addr- spec, or a domain. Further restrictions are applied to the syntax of the trace fields by specifications that provide for their use, such as [RFC5321]. trace = [return] 1*received return = "Return-Path:" path CRLF path = angle-addr / ([CFWS] "<" [CFWS] ">" [CFWS]) received = "Received:" *received-token ";" date-time CRLF received-token = word / angle-addr / addr-spec / domain A full discussion of the Internet mail use of trace fields is contained in [RFC5321]. For the purposes of this specification, the trace fields are strictly informational, and any formal interpretation of them is outside of the scope of this document.3.6.8. Optional Fields
Fields may appear in messages that are otherwise unspecified in this document. They MUST conform to the syntax of an optional-field. This is a field name, made up of the printable US-ASCII characters except SP and colon, followed by a colon, followed by any text that conforms to the unstructured syntax. The field names of any optional field MUST NOT be identical to any field name specified elsewhere in this document.
optional-field = field-name ":" unstructured CRLF
field-name = 1*ftext
ftext = %d33-57 / ; Printable US-ASCII
%d59-126 ; characters not including
; ":".
For the purposes of this specification, any optional field is
uninterpreted.
4. Obsolete Syntax
Earlier versions of this specification allowed for different (usually
more liberal) syntax than is allowed in this version. Also, there
have been syntactic elements used in messages on the Internet whose
interpretations have never been documented. Though these syntactic
forms MUST NOT be generated according to the grammar in section 3,
they MUST be accepted and parsed by a conformant receiver. This
section documents many of these syntactic elements. Taking the
grammar in section 3 and adding the definitions presented in this
section will result in the grammar to use for the interpretation of
messages.
Note: This section identifies syntactic forms that any
implementation MUST reasonably interpret. However, there are
certainly Internet messages that do not conform to even the
additional syntax given in this section. The fact that a
particular form does not appear in any section of this document is
not justification for computer programs to crash or for malformed
data to be irretrievably lost by any implementation. It is up to
the implementation to deal with messages robustly.
One important difference between the obsolete (interpreting) and the
current (generating) syntax is that in structured header field bodies
(i.e., between the colon and the CRLF of any structured header
field), white space characters, including folding white space, and
comments could be freely inserted between any syntactic tokens. This
allowed many complex forms that have proven difficult for some
implementations to parse.
Another key difference between the obsolete and the current syntax is
that the rule in section 3.2.2 regarding lines composed entirely of
white space in comments and folding white space does not apply. See
the discussion of folding white space in section 4.2 below.
Finally, certain characters that were formerly allowed in messages
appear in this section. The NUL character (ASCII value 0) was once
allowed, but is no longer for compatibility reasons. Similarly, US- ASCII control characters other than CR, LF, SP, and HTAB (ASCII values 1 through 8, 11, 12, 14 through 31, and 127) were allowed to appear in header field bodies. CR and LF were allowed to appear in messages other than as CRLF; this use is also shown here. Other differences in syntax and semantics are noted in the following sections.4.1. Miscellaneous Obsolete Tokens
These syntactic elements are used elsewhere in the obsolete syntax or in the main syntax. Bare CR, bare LF, and NUL are added to obs-qp, obs-body, and obs-unstruct. US-ASCII control characters are added to obs-qp, obs-unstruct, obs-ctext, and obs-qtext. The period character is added to obs-phrase. The obs-phrase-list provides for a (potentially empty) comma-separated list of phrases that may include "null" elements. That is, there could be two or more commas in such a list with nothing in between them, or commas at the beginning or end of the list. Note: The "period" (or "full stop") character (".") in obs-phrase is not a form that was allowed in earlier versions of this or any other specification. Period (nor any other character from specials) was not allowed in phrase because it introduced a parsing difficulty distinguishing between phrases and portions of an addr-spec (see section 4.4). It appears here because the period character is currently used in many messages in the display-name portion of addresses, especially for initials in names, and therefore must be interpreted properly. obs-NO-WS-CTL = %d1-8 / ; US-ASCII control %d11 / ; characters that do not %d12 / ; include the carriage %d14-31 / ; return, line feed, and %d127 ; white space characters obs-ctext = obs-NO-WS-CTL obs-qtext = obs-NO-WS-CTL obs-utext = %d0 / obs-NO-WS-CTL / VCHAR obs-qp = "\" (%d0 / obs-NO-WS-CTL / LF / CR) obs-body = *((*LF *CR *((%d0 / text) *LF *CR)) / CRLF) obs-unstruct = *((*LF *CR *(obs-utext *LF *CR)) / FWS)
obs-phrase = word *(word / "." / CFWS)
obs-phrase-list = [phrase / CFWS] *("," [phrase / CFWS])
Bare CR and bare LF appear in messages with two different meanings.
In many cases, bare CR or bare LF are used improperly instead of CRLF
to indicate line separators. In other cases, bare CR and bare LF are
used simply as US-ASCII control characters with their traditional
ASCII meanings.
4.2. Obsolete Folding White Space
In the obsolete syntax, any amount of folding white space MAY be
inserted where the obs-FWS rule is allowed. This creates the
possibility of having two consecutive "folds" in a line, and
therefore the possibility that a line which makes up a folded header
field could be composed entirely of white space.
obs-FWS = 1*WSP *(CRLF 1*WSP)
4.3. Obsolete Date and Time
The syntax for the obsolete date format allows a 2 digit year in the
date field and allows for a list of alphabetic time zone specifiers
that were used in earlier versions of this specification. It also
permits comments and folding white space between many of the tokens.
obs-day-of-week = [CFWS] day-name [CFWS]
obs-day = [CFWS] 1*2DIGIT [CFWS]
obs-year = [CFWS] 2*DIGIT [CFWS]
obs-hour = [CFWS] 2DIGIT [CFWS]
obs-minute = [CFWS] 2DIGIT [CFWS]
obs-second = [CFWS] 2DIGIT [CFWS]
obs-zone = "UT" / "GMT" / ; Universal Time
; North American UT
; offsets
"EST" / "EDT" / ; Eastern: - 5/ - 4
"CST" / "CDT" / ; Central: - 6/ - 5
"MST" / "MDT" / ; Mountain: - 7/ - 6
"PST" / "PDT" / ; Pacific: - 8/ - 7
;
%d65-73 / ; Military zones - "A"
%d75-90 / ; through "I" and "K"
%d97-105 / ; through "Z", both
%d107-122 ; upper and lower case
Where a two or three digit year occurs in a date, the year is to be
interpreted as follows: If a two digit year is encountered whose
value is between 00 and 49, the year is interpreted by adding 2000,
ending up with a value between 2000 and 2049. If a two digit year is
encountered with a value between 50 and 99, or any three digit year
is encountered, the year is interpreted by adding 1900.
In the obsolete time zone, "UT" and "GMT" are indications of
"Universal Time" and "Greenwich Mean Time", respectively, and are
both semantically identical to "+0000".
The remaining three character zones are the US time zones. The first
letter, "E", "C", "M", or "P" stands for "Eastern", "Central",
"Mountain", and "Pacific". The second letter is either "S" for
"Standard" time, or "D" for "Daylight Savings" (or summer) time.
Their interpretations are as follows:
EDT is semantically equivalent to -0400
EST is semantically equivalent to -0500
CDT is semantically equivalent to -0500
CST is semantically equivalent to -0600
MDT is semantically equivalent to -0600
MST is semantically equivalent to -0700
PDT is semantically equivalent to -0700
PST is semantically equivalent to -0800
The 1 character military time zones were defined in a non-standard
way in [RFC0822] and are therefore unpredictable in their meaning.
The original definitions of the military zones "A" through "I" are
equivalent to "+0100" through "+0900", respectively; "K", "L", and
"M" are equivalent to "+1000", "+1100", and "+1200", respectively;
"N" through "Y" are equivalent to "-0100" through "-1200".
respectively; and "Z" is equivalent to "+0000". However, because of
the error in [RFC0822], they SHOULD all be considered equivalent to
"-0000" unless there is out-of-band information confirming their
meaning.
Other multi-character (usually between 3 and 5) alphabetic time zones
have been used in Internet messages. Any such time zone whose
meaning is not known SHOULD be considered equivalent to "-0000"
unless there is out-of-band information confirming their meaning.
4.4. Obsolete Addressing
There are four primary differences in addressing. First, mailbox addresses were allowed to have a route portion before the addr-spec when enclosed in "<" and ">". The route is simply a comma-separated list of domain names, each preceded by "@", and the list terminated by a colon. Second, CFWS were allowed between the period-separated elements of local-part and domain (i.e., dot-atom was not used). In addition, local-part is allowed to contain quoted-string in addition to just atom. Third, mailbox-list and address-list were allowed to have "null" members. That is, there could be two or more commas in such a list with nothing in between them, or commas at the beginning or end of the list. Finally, US-ASCII control characters and quoted- pairs were allowed in domain literals and are added here. obs-angle-addr = [CFWS] "<" obs-route addr-spec ">" [CFWS] obs-route = obs-domain-list ":" obs-domain-list = *(CFWS / ",") "@" domain *("," [CFWS] ["@" domain]) obs-mbox-list = *([CFWS] ",") mailbox *("," [mailbox / CFWS]) obs-addr-list = *([CFWS] ",") address *("," [address / CFWS]) obs-group-list = 1*([CFWS] ",") [CFWS] obs-local-part = word *("." word) obs-domain = atom *("." atom) obs-dtext = obs-NO-WS-CTL / quoted-pair When interpreting addresses, the route portion SHOULD be ignored.4.5. Obsolete Header Fields
Syntactically, the primary difference in the obsolete field syntax is that it allows multiple occurrences of any of the fields and they may occur in any order. Also, any amount of white space is allowed before the ":" at the end of the field name.
obs-fields = *(obs-return /
obs-received /
obs-orig-date /
obs-from /
obs-sender /
obs-reply-to /
obs-to /
obs-cc /
obs-bcc /
obs-message-id /
obs-in-reply-to /
obs-references /
obs-subject /
obs-comments /
obs-keywords /
obs-resent-date /
obs-resent-from /
obs-resent-send /
obs-resent-rply /
obs-resent-to /
obs-resent-cc /
obs-resent-bcc /
obs-resent-mid /
obs-optional)
Except for destination address fields (described in section 4.5.3),
the interpretation of multiple occurrences of fields is unspecified.
Also, the interpretation of trace fields and resent fields that do
not occur in blocks prepended to the message is unspecified as well.
Unless otherwise noted in the following sections, interpretation of
other fields is identical to the interpretation of their non-obsolete
counterparts in section 3.
4.5.1. Obsolete Origination Date Field
obs-orig-date = "Date" *WSP ":" date-time CRLF
4.5.2. Obsolete Originator Fields
obs-from = "From" *WSP ":" mailbox-list CRLF
obs-sender = "Sender" *WSP ":" mailbox CRLF
obs-reply-to = "Reply-To" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF
4.5.3. Obsolete Destination Address Fields
obs-to = "To" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF obs-cc = "Cc" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF obs-bcc = "Bcc" *WSP ":" (address-list / (*([CFWS] ",") [CFWS])) CRLF When multiple occurrences of destination address fields occur in a message, they SHOULD be treated as if the address list in the first occurrence of the field is combined with the address lists of the subsequent occurrences by adding a comma and concatenating.4.5.4. Obsolete Identification Fields
The obsolete "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields differ from the current syntax in that they allow phrase (words or quoted strings) to appear. The obsolete forms of the left and right sides of msg-id allow interspersed CFWS, making them syntactically identical to local-part and domain, respectively. obs-message-id = "Message-ID" *WSP ":" msg-id CRLF obs-in-reply-to = "In-Reply-To" *WSP ":" *(phrase / msg-id) CRLF obs-references = "References" *WSP ":" *(phrase / msg-id) CRLF obs-id-left = local-part obs-id-right = domain For purposes of interpretation, the phrases in the "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields are ignored. Semantically, none of the optional CFWS in the local-part and the domain is part of the obs-id-left and obs-id-right, respectively.4.5.5. Obsolete Informational Fields
obs-subject = "Subject" *WSP ":" unstructured CRLF obs-comments = "Comments" *WSP ":" unstructured CRLF obs-keywords = "Keywords" *WSP ":" obs-phrase-list CRLF
4.5.6. Obsolete Resent Fields
The obsolete syntax adds a "Resent-Reply-To:" field, which consists of the field name, the optional comments and folding white space, the colon, and a comma separated list of addresses. obs-resent-from = "Resent-From" *WSP ":" mailbox-list CRLF obs-resent-send = "Resent-Sender" *WSP ":" mailbox CRLF obs-resent-date = "Resent-Date" *WSP ":" date-time CRLF obs-resent-to = "Resent-To" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF obs-resent-cc = "Resent-Cc" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF obs-resent-bcc = "Resent-Bcc" *WSP ":" (address-list / (*([CFWS] ",") [CFWS])) CRLF obs-resent-mid = "Resent-Message-ID" *WSP ":" msg-id CRLF obs-resent-rply = "Resent-Reply-To" *WSP ":" address-list CRLF As with other resent fields, the "Resent-Reply-To:" field is to be treated as trace information only.4.5.7. Obsolete Trace Fields
The obs-return and obs-received are again given here as template definitions, just as return and received are in section 3. Their full syntax is given in [RFC5321]. obs-return = "Return-Path" *WSP ":" path CRLF obs-received = "Received" *WSP ":" *received-token CRLF4.5.8. Obsolete optional fields
obs-optional = field-name *WSP ":" unstructured CRLF
(page 38 continued on part 3)