rfc-8792

Handling Long Lines in Content of Internet-Drafts and RFCs

K. Watsen, E. Auerswald, A. Farrel, Q. Wu
date2020-06 streamIETF areaops wgnetmod statusINFORMATIONAL pages28 canonicalhttps://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8792 doi10.17487/RFC8792 errataview
This document defines two strategies for handling long lines in width-bounded text content. One strategy, called the "single backslash" strategy, is based on the historical use of a single backslash ('\') character to indicate where line-folding has occurred, with the continuation occurring with the first character that is not a space character (' ') on the next line. The second strategy, called the "double backslash" strategy, extends the first strategy by adding a second backslash character to identify where the continuation begins and is thereby able to handle cases not supported by the first strategy. Both strategies use a self-describing header enabling automated reconstitution of the original content.