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>





                               1
    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> <time> - <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
          <time>        ::= 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





                               2
    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.



















































                                3

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