[Yaml-core] (backfill) YAML Meeting: Notes on RFC 2045/6 (MIME)

[Clark C . E. <cc...@cl...>]

----- Forwarded message from "Clark C . Evans" <cc...@cl...> -----
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 22:22:29 -0500
From: "Clark C . Evans" <cc...@cl...>
To: Brian Ingerson <briani@ActiveState.com>
Cc: Oren Ben-Kiki <or...@ri...>
Subject: Re: YAML & Pointers/References

Notes Regarding RFC 2045/6 (MIME).

A few things to note:

  - Provides a way to break E-Mail into several 
    attachments using a divider
  - Is implemented through a set of RFC822 header
    lines
  - Each attachment can be specified with a
    transfer encoding to keep the mail message
    below 76 columns.  The two most common are
    base64 which can be used for binary sections,
    and quoted-printable, which basically truncates
    each line at 76 columns using an escape mechanism
    based on the equal sign.
  - Each section can have it's own character encoding.
  - Each section can have it's own set of headers,
    specifically there is an "id" attribute which is
    of interest.
  - Just about any mail reader knows how to handle
    MIME.

Impacts:

  - We need to have leaves that are binary, or formatted
    raw text.  MIME does this nicely.

  - Instead of concatinating files directly, we may want
    to just have one added as an attachment.  This is 
    interesting way to "aggregate" content.

  - (Forgotton RFC822 impact) the header must be ASCII,
    thus UTF16 is not a possibility.  Therefore, we 
    should probably support UTF8.

MIME is well known, simple, and very workable.

Notes:

  - I have about three implementations that I've found
    source code for.  Most are distributed with a BSD 
    like license, thus we can probably pick the best
    parts from each implementation
 
  - For a native Python/Perl implementation, one could
    easily use an rfc822/mime compliant package rather
    than rolling our own...  but I think I'll just copy
    and customize for our purposes (there is a lot
    of verification stuff for From/To formatting 
    we just don't need).



----- End forwarded message -----