diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'mboxu.5')
| -rw-r--r-- | mboxu.5 | 57 |
1 files changed, 57 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +.Dd $Mdocdate$ +.Dt mboxu 5 +.Os +. +.Sh NAME +.Nm mboxu +.Nd mbox in UTF-8 +. +. +.Sh DESCIPTION +.Pp +.Nm +is a simple and readable mbox-like format, in which messages are encoded directly in UTF-8. + +Messages are differentiated from one another via a line beginning with +.Ql From\ , +.Em followed by at least one header line . + +Otherwise, +.Nm +is identical to traditional mbox. +. +.Sh RATIONALE +.Pp +.Nm +has two goals: +.Bl -enum +.It +to be easily writable and readable by humans, and +.It +to be easily generated and parsed by machines. +.El +.Pp +Normally, non-ASCII e-mail messages must be encoded in base64 or quoted-printable, rendering them more or less unreadable in raw form. +Mailboxes using +.Nm , +on the other hand, do not require any decoding to be read by a human. + +Likewise, +.Nm +is much easier to generate and manually write than standard mbox. +. +.Sh FUTURE +.Pp +In the future, a readable alternative to multipart messages may be added, where non-canonical parts are stored in separate files and referenced via some +.Ql Attachment: +header. +.Pp +If that is added, a translator between +.Nm +and standard mbox might be desirable. +. +.Sh AUTHORS +.Pp +.Nm +is created by John Ankarström +.Aq Mt john (at) ankarstrom.se . |