August 13, 1982               - 4 -                      RFC #822
 

 
     Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages


     3.  LEXICAL ANALYSIS OF MESSAGES

     3.1.  GENERAL DESCRIPTION

          A message consists of header fields and, optionally, a body.
     The  body  is simply a sequence of lines containing ASCII charac-
     ters.  It is separated from the headers by a null line  (i.e.,  a
     line with nothing preceding the CRLF).

     3.1.1.  LONG HEADER FIELDS

        Each header field can be viewed as a single, logical  line  of
        ASCII  characters,  comprising  a field-name and a field-body.
        For convenience, the field-body  portion  of  this  conceptual
        entity  can be split into a multiple-line representation; this
        is called "folding".  The general rule is that wherever  there
        may  be  linear-white-space  (NOT  simply  LWSP-chars), a CRLF
        immediately followed by AT LEAST one LWSP-char may instead  be
        inserted.  Thus, the single line

            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" , JJV @ BBN

        can be represented as:

            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" ,
                    JJV@BBN

        and

            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey"
                            , JJV
             @BBN

        and

            To:  "Joe &
             J. Harvey" , JJV @ BBN

             The process of moving  from  this  folded   multiple-line
        representation  of a header field to its single line represen-
        tation is called "unfolding".  Unfolding  is  accomplished  by
        regarding   CRLF   immediately  followed  by  a  LWSP-char  as
        equivalent to the LWSP-char.

        Note:  While the standard  permits  folding  wherever  linear-
               white-space is permitted, it is recommended that struc-
               tured fields, such as those containing addresses, limit
               folding  to higher-level syntactic breaks.  For address
               fields, it  is  recommended  that  such  folding  occur


     August 13, 1982               - 5 -                      RFC #822
 

 
     Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages


               between addresses, after the separating comma.

     3.1.2.  STRUCTURE OF HEADER FIELDS

        Once a field has been unfolded, it may be viewed as being com-
        posed of a field-name followed by a colon (":"), followed by a
        field-body, and  terminated  by  a  carriage-return/line-feed.
        The  field-name must be composed of printable ASCII characters
        (i.e., characters that  have  values  between  33.  and  126.,
        decimal, except colon).  The field-body may be composed of any
        ASCII characters, except CR or LF.  (While CR and/or LF may be
        present  in the actual text, they are removed by the action of
        unfolding the field.)

        Certain field-bodies of headers may be  interpreted  according
        to  an  internal  syntax  that some systems may wish to parse.
        These  fields  are  called  "structured   fields".    Examples
        include  fields containing dates and addresses.  Other fields,
        such as "Subject"  and  "Comments",  are  regarded  simply  as
        strings of text.

        Note:  Any field which has a field-body  that  is  defined  as
               other  than  simply  is to be treated as a struc-
               tured field.

               Field-names, unstructured field bodies  and  structured
               field bodies each are scanned by their own, independent
               "lexical" analyzers.

     3.1.3.  UNSTRUCTURED FIELD BODIES