Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!erix!per
From: per@erix.UUCP (Per Hedeland)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Are underbars considered bad form for addresses in  RFC822 headers?
Message-ID: <1600@erix.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 88 10:21:56 GMT
References: <4289@hoptoad.uucp> <Apr.1.17.35.54.1988.3117@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: per@erix.UUCP (Per Hedeland)
Organization: Ericsson Telecom, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 15

In article <Apr.1.17.35.54.1988.3117@topaz.rutgers.edu> ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) writes:
>  Underscore is a legal charater in an atom and
>is not required to be quoted (as certain other characters such as period).

Where does this notion that periods are not allowed in unquoted local-parts
come from (I've encountered it in other places as well)? As far as I can
understand, RFC822 quite to the contrary explicitly allows this, giving

     local-part  =  word *("." word)             ; uninterpreted
                                                 ; case-preserved

as the definition. This is even discussed in some detail in para 6.2.4-5.

Regards
--Per Hedeland
per@erix.ericsson.se  or  ...{mcvax,uunet}!enea!erix!per