a quoted-string or comment; however only certain characters
MUST be quoted to be included as data. These characters are
the ones that are not part of the alternate text group (i.e.,
ctext or qtext).
The one exception to this rule is that a single SPACE is
assumed to exist between contiguous words in a phrase, and
this interpretation is independent of the actual number of
LWSP-chars that the creator places between the words. To
include more than one SPACE, the creator must make the LWSP-
chars be part of a quoted-string.
Quotation marks that delimit a quoted string and backslashes
that quote the following character should NOT accompany the
quoted-string when the string is passed to processes that do
not interpret data according to this specification (e.g., mail
protocol servers).
3.4.5. QUOTED-STRINGS
Where permitted (i.e., in words in structured fields) quoted-
strings are treated as a single symbol. That is, a quoted-
string is equivalent to an atom, syntactically. If a quoted-
string is to be "folded" onto multiple lines, then the syntax
for folding must be adhered to. (See the "Lexical Analysis of
August 13, 1982 - 13 - RFC #822
Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages
Messages" section on "Folding Long Header Fields" above, and
the section on "Case Independence" below.) Therefore, the
official semantics do not "see" any bare CRLFs that are in
quoted-strings; however particular parsing programs may wish
to note their presence. For such programs, it would be rea-
sonable to interpret a "CRLF LWSP-char" as being a CRLF which
is part of the quoted-string; i.e., the CRLF is kept and the
LWSP-char is discarded. Quoted CRLFs (i.e., a backslash fol-
lowed by a CR followed by a LF) are also subject to rules of
folding, but the presence of the quoting character (backslash)
explicitly indicates that the CRLF is data to the quoted
string. Stripping off the first following LWSP-char is also
appropriate when parsing quoted CRLFs.
3.4.6. BRACKETING CHARACTERS
There is one type of bracket which must occur in matched pairs
and may have pairs nested within each other:
o Parentheses ("(" and ")") are used to indicate com-
ments.
There are three types of brackets which must occur in matched
pairs, and which may NOT be nested:
o Colon/semi-colon (":" and ";") are used in address
specifications to indicate that the included list of
addresses are to be treated as a group.
o Angle brackets ("<" and ">") are generally used to
indicate the presence of a one machine-usable refer-
ence (e.g., delimiting mailboxes), possibly including
source-routing to the machine.
o Square brackets ("[" and "]") are used to indicate the
presence of a domain-literal, which the appropriate
name-domain is to use directly, bypassing normal
name-resolution mechanisms.
3.4.7. CASE INDEPENDENCE
Except as noted, alphabetic strings may be represented in any
combination of upper and lower case. The only syntactic units
August 13, 1982 - 14 - RFC #822
Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages
which requires preservation of case information are:
- text
- qtext
- dtext
- ctext
- quoted-pair
- local-part, except "Postmaster"
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