Re: [Exim] general smtp question

On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Tamas TEVESZ wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Dave C. wrote:
>
> > The 76 chracter limit is not set by SMTP, but by MIME.
>
> that's where i got to too, but where is it written (i mean, as
> a standard) ? the only reference to base64 i found is mime's rfc...

Er.. I don't beleive there is an RFC defining base64 any more than there
is an RFC defining ASCII. (or base2, base8, base16, etc)..

It doesnt surprise me that MIME is the only defined standard that uses
base64, either.. (Well, obviously SMTP auth uses it too, but base64
itself is simply an encoding, not a protocol, so 'line length' is not a
concept that would be defined)

base64 itself doesnt have a 'max line length' any more than 'binary' has
a 'max number of bits'. (A particular application might specify a binary
number with a maximum size, but binary itself doesnt have a maximum
size)

If SMTP auth doesnt set a limit, then whatever the SMTP RFC defines (if
it does) as a maximum command line length applies then.