- From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
- Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 20:47:02 -0500
- To: James M Galvin <galvin@eListX.com>
- cc: discuss@apps.ietf.org
> I've been looking through the various MIME specifications looking for a > specific reference to a canonical form for MIME headers. there's not one. furthermore, the set of transformations which are applied by widely-deployed MTAs is such that it's probably impossible to define a canonical form such that canonical_form(source message) == canonical_form(delivered message) with any reliability. this is why all of the protocols for signing mail encapsulate the signed message inside an attachment, and expect MTAs to treat the attachment as an opaque object rather than (say) munging its header or translating its content. under those conditions there is no need for a unique and unambiguous representation of the headers. Keith
Received on Wednesday, 7 November 2001 20:48:24 UTC