RFC 822, "STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES", August 1982

Note: This RFC has been obsoleted by RFC 2822

Note: This RFC has been updated by RFC 1123, RFC 2156, RFC 1327, RFC 1138, RFC 1148

Errata ID: 7573
Status: Reported
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Ulrich Windl
Date Reported: 2023-07-24

Section 3.1.1 says:

        inserted.  Thus, the single line
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @Org>, JJV @ BBN
        can be represented as:
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>,
                    JJV@BBN
        and
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey"
                            <ddd@ Org>, JJV
             @BBN
        and
            To:  "Joe &
             J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>, JJV @ BBN

It should say:

        inserted.  Thus, the single line
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @Org>, JJV @ BBN
        can be represented as:
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>,
             JJV@BBN
        and
            To:  "Joe & J. Harvey"
             <ddd@ Org>, JJV
             @BBN
        and
            To:  "Joe &
             J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>, JJV @ BBN

Notes:

Possibly arising from mis-interpreting RFC 733 section III.B.a (Folding and unfolding of headers) which says: "The general rule is that wherever there can be linear-white-space (NOT simply LWSP-chars), a CRLF immediately followed by AT LEAST one LWSP-char can instead be inserted."
This may be interpreted that when folding at one while space character an arbitrary amount of white space characters may be inserted at the next line, also saying that one white space in a header is equivalent to multiple white space characters.
subsequent revisions (RFC 2822, RFC 5322) are increasingly more clear on that:
"The general rule is that wherever this specification allows for folding white space (not simply WSP characters), a CRLF may be inserted before any WSP."

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