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Re: [ietf-smtp] Proper definition of the term "email payload".

Dave Crocker <dcrocker@gmail.com> Mon, 01 April 2019 00:42 UTC

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To: Viruthagiri Thirumavalavan <giri@dombox.org>, ietf-smtp@ietf.org, barry@python.org
References: <CAOEezJRM8ZVaWK6rtvP4ZH9CbN-itVof9_Zi8hf+wVym0cAxzA@mail.gmail.com>
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker@gmail.com>
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Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2019 17:42:46 -0700
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Subject: Re: [ietf-smtp] Proper definition of the term "email payload".
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On 3/31/2019 10:57 AM, Viruthagiri Thirumavalavan wrote:
> I need some clarification about the term "email payload".

The term 'payload' is not a formal term of art in email.  The word 
appears only once in RFC 5598, and not in a context that concerns your 
topic of interest.  It does not appear at all in RFC 5321 or RFC 5322 or 
RFC 3501.

Considering the message body as the payload is reasonable in some cases, 
but not in others, because there is quite a bit of user-to-user 
information in some of the message header fields.

In SMTP context, it's probably safe to say that everything after the 
DATA command is payload.  Certainly in terms of typical use of the word 
payload in protocol discussions, I think that's a straightforward 
assessment.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

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