[Info-vax] To MIME or not to MIME

[George Cornelius]

In article <00B30BB2.688FB617 at SendSpamHere.ORG>, VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
> 
> Bingo!  Problem determined.  
> 
> 
> Content-Type: image/jpeg
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="=?UTF-8?b?QmFsc2EuanBn?="
> Content-ID: <ee8bdd05-5d43-8d03-f9cd-139db0dd7eea at yahoo.com>
> 
> I edited the BALSA.TXT file and changed:
> 
> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="=?UTF-8?b?QmFsc2EuanBn?="
> 
> to read:
> 
> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="BALSA.JPG"
> 
> 
> The error message is very misleading.  It's also odd that the filename was
> encoded as it was.  My wife scans and sends me hundreds of photos.  I have
> never had a problem like this one.

Welcome to the wonderful world of SMTP.

I believe this is the correct method of specifying UTF-8 encoding in SMTP header
fields.  No documentation handy, but the ?b? is desriptive as well - probably
indicates that the immediately following UTF-8 name is base64 encoded.

Some header fields allow this encoding.  Others do not.

I am not surprised that MIME.EXE cannot cope with UTF-8.  The unfortunate
part is that it does not fail in a way that leaves the output name
undetermined and then return you to its command prompt. Within the
MIME utility, once the specified filename has been parsed and saved,
it can be overridden later via a subsequent output command.

George