SMTP: When the SMTP Gateway Uses Quotation Marks

 Last reviewed: October 20, 1997
Article ID: Q98208
2.10 3.00 MS-DOS kb3rdparty

The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Mail Gateway to SMTP, versions 2.1 and 3.0

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Mail Gateway to SMTP is RFC 822 compliant regarding double and single quotation marks.

MORE INFORMATION

Double Quotation Marks

Double quotation marks are for when certain special characters are used within the header fields of the message. The special characters are listed in RFC 822, section 3.3, titled "Lexical Tokens." The special characters are: 

  (    Left parenthesis
  )    Right parenthesis
  <    Less-than sign
  >    Greater-than sign
  @    At sign
  ,    Comma
  ;    Semicolon
  :    Colon
  \    Backslash
  "    Double quotation marks
  .    Period
  [    Left square bracket
  ]    Right square bracket
If the gateway sees any of these characters within the header fields, it uses double quotation marks around the information.

Note: If a SMTP host wants to enclose something in double quotation marks, the text enclosed can be any ASCII character, or white space, EXCEPT: 

  "       Double quotation marks
  \       Backslash
  CR      Carriage return

Single Quotation Marks

RFC 822 does not include any discussion on single quotation marks.

REFERENCES

RFC 822: Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages

Additional reference words: 3.00 curly curley special
KBCategory: kb3rdparty
KBSubcategory: MailGWSMTP

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Last reviewed: October 20, 1997
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