RFC Errata
Found 7 records.
Status: Verified (5)
RFC 3696, "Application Techniques for Checking and Transformation of Names", February 2004
Source of RFC: INDEPENDENT
Errata ID: 246
Status: Verified
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: John C. Klensin
Date Reported: 2005-07-09
Section 3 says:
The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example Abc\@def@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in Fred\ Bloggs@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., Joe.\\Blow@example.com
It should say:
The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example "Abc\@def"@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in "Fred\ Bloggs"@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., "Joe.\\Blow"@example.com
Errata ID: 1003
Status: Verified
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: John C. Klensin
Date Reported: 2005-07-09
Section 3 says:
In addition to restrictions on syntax, there is a length limit on email addresses. That limit is a maximum of 64 characters (octets) in the "local part" (before the "@") and a maximum of 255 characters (octets) in the domain part (after the "@") for a total length of 320 characters. Systems that handle email should be prepared to process addresses which are that long, even though they are rarely encountered.
It should say:
In addition to restrictions on syntax, there is a length limit on email addresses. That limit is a maximum of 64 characters (octets) in the "local part" (before the "@") and a maximum of 255 characters (octets) in the domain part (after the "@") for a total length of 320 characters. However, there is a restriction in RFC 2821 on the length of an address in MAIL and RCPT commands of 256 characters. Since addresses that do not fit in those fields are not normally useful, the upper limit on address lengths should normally be considered to be 256.
Errata ID: 1004
Status: Verified
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Charles Curran
Date Reported: 2007-09-09
Verifier Name: John C. Klensin
Date Verified: 2007-09-09
Section 4.3 says:
+-------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+ | Email address | MAILTO URL | Notes | +-------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+ | Joe@example.com | mailto:joe@example.com | 1 | ... Notes on Table 1. No characters appear in the email address that require escaping, so the body of the MAILTO URL is identical to the email address.
It should say:
+-------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+ | Email address | MAILTO URL | Notes | +-------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------+ | Joe@example.com | mailto:Joe@example.com | 1 | ... Notes on Table 1. No characters appear in the email address that require escaping, so the body of the MAILTO URL is identical to the email address. Because the local part of email addresses may be treated as case-sensitive by the system hosting the mailbox (see RFC 2821, Section 4.1.2), "mailto:joe@example.com" would not be a valid URL for the mailbox Joe@example.com even though, if the recommendations of RFC 2821 are followed, it would work as a synonym. See also Section 6.2.3 of RFC 3986.
Errata ID: 1690
Status: Verified
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Dominic Sayers
Date Reported: 2009-02-22
Verifier Name: Nevil Brownlee
Date Verified: 2010-04-03
Section 3 says:
(from erratum 1003) In addition to restrictions on syntax, there is a length limit on email addresses. That limit is a maximum of 64 characters (octets) in the "local part" (before the "@") and a maximum of 255 characters (octets) in the domain part (after the "@") for a total length of 320 characters. However, there is a restriction in RFC 2821 on the length of an address in MAIL and RCPT commands of 256 characters. Since addresses that do not fit in those fields are not normally useful, the upper limit on address lengths should normally be considered to be 256.
It should say:
In addition to restrictions on syntax, there is a length limit on email addresses. That limit is a maximum of 64 characters (octets) in the "local part" (before the "@") and a maximum of 255 characters (octets) in the domain part (after the "@") for a total length of 320 characters. However, there is a restriction in RFC 2821 on the length of an address in MAIL and RCPT commands of 254 characters. Since addresses that do not fit in those fields are not normally useful, the upper limit on address lengths should normally be considered to be 254.
Notes:
I believe erratum ID 1003 is slightly wrong. RFC 2821 places a 256 character limit on the forward-path. But a path is defined as
Path = "<" [ A-d-l ":" ] Mailbox ">"
So the forward-path will contain at least a pair of angle brackets in addition to the Mailbox. This limits the Mailbox (i.e. the email address) to 254 characters.
Errata ID: 3563
Status: Verified
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: David Hoerl
Date Reported: 2013-03-22
Verifier Name: Nevil Brownlee
Date Verified: 2014-02-03
Section 3.4 says:
Section 3 says: The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example Abc\@def@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in Fred\ Bloggs@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., Joe.\\Blow@example.com
It should say:
Section 3 says: The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example Abc\@def@example.com or "Abc@def"@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in Fred\ Bloggs@example.com or "Fred Bloggs"@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., Joe.\\Blow@example.com or " Joe.\Blow"@example.com
Notes:
Errata 246 is clearly wrong. The author changed the quoting to make it appear backslash quoting was required to use a single backquote. This is totally wrong, and contradicts the RFC text:
"may appear quoted, or in a quoted string".
I tested today with several mailers sending to the google pseudo-alias of first.last+note@gmail.com, where note can be arbitrary text. By testing numerous versions of quoting I was able to see that my corrected text was what appeared in the destination email.
Status: Held for Document Update (2)
RFC 3696, "Application Techniques for Checking and Transformation of Names", February 2004
Source of RFC: INDEPENDENT
Errata ID: 4002
Status: Held for Document Update
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Brandon Gabbert
Date Reported: 2014-05-28
Held for Document Update by: Nevil Brownlee
Date Held: 2014-08-25
Section 3 says:
The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example Abc\@def@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in Fred\ Bloggs@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., Joe.\\Blow@example.com In addition to quoting using the backslash character, conventional double-quote characters may be used to surround strings. For example "Abc@def"@example.com "Fred Bloggs"@example.com are alternate forms of the first two examples above.
It should say:
The exact rule is that any ASCII character, including control characters, may appear quoted, or in a quoted string. When quoting is needed, the backslash character is used to quote the following character. For example Abc\@def@example.com is a valid form of an email address. Blank spaces may also appear, as in Fred\ Bloggs@example.com The backslash character may also be used to quote itself, e.g., Joe.\\Blow@example.com In addition to quoting using the backslash character, conventional double-quote characters may be used to surround strings. For example "Abc@def"@example.com "Fred Bloggs"@example.com "Joe.\\Blow"@example.com are alternate forms of the examples above.
Notes:
Errata 3563 is incorrect. The first two suggested additions it makes to the spec are actually already present in the original spec just one paragraph down. The third and final suggested addition (allowing an unquoted backslash in a quoted string), while appearing to comport with this RFC, violates RFC 2822 (the reference document for this section). While the suggested email address is valid, it is not equivalent to the original.
RFC 2822 sections 3.2.1, 3.2.2, and 3.2.5 define quoted-string as consisting of any unquoted ASCII character except for backslash and double quote, and any backslash-quoted ASCII character including backslash and double quote.
Thus, while it is correct that
"Joe.\Blow"@example.com
is a valid email address, it is not equivalent to
Joe.\\Blow@example.com
as the \B in the first should be interpreted as a quoted B, not as an illegally unquoted backslash followed by a B. The quoted equivalent of
Joe.\\Blow@example.com
is
"Joe.\\Blow"@example.com
This example was probably left out of the original spec because the quoted-string version differs from the original only in the quotes themselves.
Errata ID: 7592
Status: Held for Document Update
Type: Editorial
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Rémi Plénat
Date Reported: 2023-08-07
Held for Document Update by: RFC Editor
Date Held: 2024-04-09
Section 3 says:
acute accent ("`")
It should say:
backtick ("`")
Notes:
Acute accent would be in the other direction like in É.
This accent is usually mentioned as backtick or backquote.
===RPC Notes===
A bis doc should consider referring to "grave accent", "backtick", or "backquote".
From John Klensin:
"grave accent" is the term used both by Unicode and by the ASCII
standard (X3.4-1968, RFC 20, INCITS 4-1986[R2017], ISO 646 BV).
In Unicode-land and the surrounding vicinity, "backtick" is
often a combining character, U+0300, and backquote is, even more
often--and preferred by the Standard -- U+301D. Neither
backtick or backquote is used by Unicode to identify a
character, probably because of those ambiguities.