[ebxml-msg] About Content-ID in examples

["Cherian, Sanjay" <Sanjay_Cherian@stercomm.com>]

Hi,

I want to relate what I think is a minor technical issue with the treatment
of Content-ID in ebMS.

Line 492 of ebMS v1.0.6 states:

It is strongly RECOMMENDED that the initial headers contain a Content-ID
MIME header structured in accordance with [RFC2045], ...

Line 1432 of RFC2045 says:

     id := "Content-ID" ":" msg-id

where msg-id is defined in line 1210 of RFC822:

     msg-id      =  "<" addr-spec ">"            ; Unique message id

The above leads me to believe that the value of the MIME Content-ID header
must always be enclosed in angle brackets <>.
The examples in ebMS however do not always follow this
convention/requirement. Lines 501, 527 do not reflect this understanding
whereas lines 558, 2670 and others do.

My question is: 'Is it legal to have a value for Content-ID not enclosed
within angle brackets?'. Is there another RFC that supersedes this
one (RFC2045) that allows this possibility? Hence, are MSHs required to
handle both cases?

Another related item is about what looks like an error in RFC 2392:

   A "cid" URL is converted to the corresponding Content-ID message
   header [MIME] by removing the "cid:" prefix, converting the % encoded
   character to their equivalent US-ASCII characters, and enclosing the
   remaining parts with an angle bracket pair, "<" and ">".  For
   example, "cid:foo4%25foo1@bar.net" corresponds to

     Content-ID: <foo4%25foo1@bar.net>

It looks like Levinson in this RFC really mean that
"cid:foo4%25foo1@bar.net" corresponds to "Content-ID: foo4%foo1@bar.net"
where the hex value of the '%' character is 25.

James Galvin has pointed out that ebMS v1.0.6 could refer to RFC2822 (which
was released in April 2001 and obsoletes RFC822).

Comments and criticisms equally appreciated.

Regards,
Sanjay


Sanjay J. Cherian
Software Architect
Sterling Commerce
Irving, TX
(469) 524-2753