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RFC 6532 - Internationalized Email Headers

  • Status: Proposed Standard
  • Published: February 2012
  • Stream: IETF
  • Updates: RFC2045
  • Obsoletes: RFC5335
  • Errata: Errata Exist

Document Information​

  • RFC Number: 6532
  • Title: Internationalized Email Headers
  • Authors: A. Yang, S. Steele, N. Freed
  • Date: February 2012
  • Category: Standards Track
  • Updates: RFC 2045
  • Obsoletes: RFC 5335
  • ISSN: 2070-1721

Abstract​

Internet mail was originally limited to 7-bit ASCII. MIME added support for the use of 8-bit character sets in body parts, and also defined an encoded-word construct so other character sets could be used in certain header field values. However, full internationalization of electronic mail requires additional enhancements to allow the use of Unicode, including characters outside the ASCII repertoire, in mail addresses as well as direct use of Unicode in header fields like "From:", "To:", and "Subject:", without requiring the use of complex encoded-word constructs. This document specifies an enhancement to the Internet Message Format and to MIME that allows use of Unicode in mail addresses and most header field content.

This specification updates Section 6.4 of RFC 2045 to eliminate the restriction prohibiting the use of non-identity content-transfer-encodings on subtypes of "message/".

Status of This Memo​

This is an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6532.

Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

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