Emacs MIME

This manual documents the libraries used to compose and display MIME messages.

This manual is directed at users who want to modify the behavior of the MIME encoding/decoding process or want a more detailed picture of how the Emacs MIME library works, and people who want to write functions and commands that manipulate MIME elements.

MIME is short for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. This standard is documented in a number of RFCs; mainly RFC2045 (Format of Internet Message Bodies), RFC2046 (Media Types), RFC2047 (Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text), RFC2048 (Registration Procedures), RFC2049 (Conformance Criteria and Examples). It is highly recommended that anyone who intends writing MIME-compliant software read at least RFC2045 and RFC2047.

This file documents the Emacs MIME interface functionality.

Copyright © 1998–2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with the Front-Cover texts being “A GNU Manual”, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

(a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: “You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual.”

Decoding and Viewing A framework for decoding and viewing.
Composing MML; a language for describing MIME parts.
Interface Functions An abstraction over the basic functions.
Basic Functions Utility and basic parsing functions.
Standards A summary of RFCs and working documents used.
GNU Free Documentation License The license for this documentation.
Index Function and variable index.

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1 Decoding and Viewing

This chapter deals with decoding and viewing MIME messages on a higher level.

The main idea is to first analyze a MIME article, and then allow other programs to do things based on the list of handles that are returned as a result of this analysis.

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1.1 Dissection

The mm-dissect-buffer is the function responsible for dissecting a MIME article. If given a multipart message, it will recursively descend the message, following the structure, and return a tree of MIME handles that describes the structure of the message.

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1.2 Non-MIME

Gnus also understands some non-MIME attachments, such as postscript, uuencode, binhex, yenc, shar, forward, gnatsweb, pgp, diff. Each of these features can be disabled by add an item into mm-uu-configure-list. For example, 

     (require 'mm-uu)
     (add-to-list 'mm-uu-configure-list '(pgp-signed . disabled))
postscript
PostScript file.
uu
Uuencoded file.
binhex
Binhex encoded file.
yenc
Yenc encoded file.
shar
Shar archive file.
forward
Non-MIME forwarded message.
gnatsweb
Gnatsweb attachment.
pgp-signed
PGP signed clear text.
pgp-encrypted
PGP encrypted clear text.
pgp-key
PGP public keys.
emacs-sources
Emacs source code. This item works only in the groups matching mm-uu-emacs-sources-regexp.
diff
Patches. This is intended for groups where diffs of committed files are automatically sent to. It only works in groups matching mm-uu-diff-groups-regexp.
verbatim-marks
Slrn-style verbatim marks.
LaTeX
LaTeX documents. It only works in groups matching mm-uu-tex-groups-regexp.

Some inlined non-MIME attachments are displayed using the face mm-uu-extract. By default, no MIME button for these parts is displayed. You can force displaying a button using K b (gnus-summary-display-buttonized) or add text/x-verbatim to gnus-buttonized-mime-types, See MIME Commands.

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1.3 Handles

A MIME handle is a list that fully describes a MIME component.

The following macros can be used to access elements in a handle:

mm-handle-buffer
Return the buffer that holds the contents of the undecoded MIME part.
mm-handle-type
Return the parsed Content-Type of the part.
mm-handle-encoding
Return the Content-Transfer-Encoding of the part.
mm-handle-undisplayer
Return the object that can be used to remove the displayed part (if it has been displayed).
mm-handle-set-undisplayer
Set the undisplayer object.
mm-handle-disposition
Return the parsed Content-Disposition of the part.
mm-get-content-id
Returns the handle(s) referred to by Content-ID.

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1.4 Display

Functions for displaying, removing and saving.

mm-display-part
Display the part.
mm-remove-part
Remove the part (if it has been displayed).
mm-inlinable-p
Say whether a MIME type can be displayed inline.
mm-automatic-display-p
Say whether a MIME type should be displayed automatically.
mm-destroy-part
Free all resources occupied by a part.
mm-save-part
Offer to save the part in a file.
mm-pipe-part
Offer to pipe the part to some process.
mm-interactively-view-part
Prompt for a mailcap method to use to view the part.

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1.5 Display Customization

mm-inline-media-tests
This is an alist where the key is a MIME type, the second element is a function to display the part inline (i.e., inside Emacs), and the third element is a form to be evaled to say whether the part can be displayed inline.

This variable specifies whether a part can be displayed inline, and, if so, how to do it. It does not say whether parts are actually displayed inline.

mm-inlined-types
This, on the other hand, says what types are to be displayed inline, if they satisfy the conditions set by the variable above. It's a list of MIME media types.
mm-automatic-display
This is a list of types that are to be displayed “automatically”, but only if the above variable allows it. That is, only inlinable parts can be displayed automatically.
mm-automatic-external-display
This is a list of types that will be displayed automatically in an external viewer.
mm-keep-viewer-alive-types
This is a list of media types for which the external viewer will not be killed when selecting a different article.
mm-attachment-override-types
Some MIME agents create parts that have a content-disposition of ‘attachment’. This variable allows overriding that disposition and displaying the part inline. (Note that the disposition is only overridden if we are able to, and want to, display the part inline.)
mm-discouraged-alternatives
List of MIME types that are discouraged when viewing ‘multipart/alternative’. Viewing agents are supposed to view the last possible part of a message, as that is supposed to be the richest. However, users may prefer other types instead, and this list says what types are most unwanted. If, for instance, ‘text/html’ parts are very unwanted, and ‘text/richtext’ parts are somewhat unwanted, you could say something like: 
          (setq mm-discouraged-alternatives
                '("text/html" "text/richtext")
                mm-automatic-display
                (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display))

Adding "image/.*" might also be useful. Spammers use images as the preferred part of ‘multipart/alternative’ messages, so you might not notice there are other parts. See also gnus-buttonized-mime-types, MIME Commands. After adding "multipart/alternative" to gnus-buttonized-mime-types you can choose manually which alternative you'd like to view. For example, you can set those variables like: 

          (setq gnus-buttonized-mime-types
                '("multipart/alternative" "multipart/signed")
                mm-discouraged-alternatives
                '("text/html" "image/.*"))

In this case, Gnus will display radio buttons for such a kind of spam message as follows: 

          1.  (*) multipart/alternative  ( ) image/gif
          
          2.  (*) text/plain          ( ) text/html

mm-inline-large-images
When displaying inline images that are larger than the window, Emacs does not enable scrolling, which means that you cannot see the whole image. To prevent this, the library tries to determine the image size before displaying it inline, and if it doesn't fit the window, the library will display it externally (e.g., with ‘ImageMagick’ or ‘xv’). Setting this variable to t disables this check and makes the library display all inline images as inline, regardless of their size. If you set this variable to resize, the image will be displayed resized to fit in the window, if Emacs has the ability to resize images.
mm-inline-large-images-proportion
The proportion used when resizing large images.
mm-inline-override-types
mm-inlined-types may include regular expressions, for example to specify that all ‘text/.*’ parts be displayed inline. If a user prefers to have a type that matches such a regular expression be treated as an attachment, that can be accomplished by setting this variable to a list containing that type. For example assuming mm-inlined-types includes ‘text/.*’, then including ‘text/html’ in this variable will cause ‘text/html’ parts to be treated as attachments.
mm-text-html-renderer
This selects the function used to render HTML. The predefined renderers are selected by the symbols gnus-article-html, w3, w3m1, links, lynx, w3m-standalone or html2text. If nil use an external viewer. You can also specify a function, which will be called with a MIME handle as the argument.
mm-inline-text-html-with-images
Some HTML mails might have the trick of spammers using ‘<img>’ tags. It is likely to be intended to verify whether you have read the mail. You can prevent your personal information from leaking by setting this option to nil (which is the default). It is currently ignored by Emacs/w3. For emacs-w3m, you may use the command t on the image anchor to show an image even if it is nil.2
mm-w3m-safe-url-regexp
A regular expression that matches safe URL names, i.e., URLs that are unlikely to leak personal information when rendering HTML email (the default value is ‘\\`cid:’). If nil consider all URLs safe. In Gnus, this will be overridden according to the value of the variable gnus-safe-html-newsgroups, See Various Various.
mm-inline-text-html-with-w3m-keymap
You can use emacs-w3m command keys in the inlined text/html part by setting this option to non-nil. The default value is t.
mm-external-terminal-program
The program used to start an external terminal.
mm-enable-external
Indicate whether external MIME handlers should be used.

If t, all defined external MIME handlers are used. If nil, files are saved to disk (mailcap-save-binary-file). If it is the symbol ask, you are prompted before the external MIME handler is invoked.

When you launch an attachment through mailcap (see mailcap) an attempt is made to use a safe viewer with the safest options—this isn't the case if you save it to disk and launch it in a different way (command line or double-clicking). Anyhow, if you want to be sure not to launch any external programs, set this variable to nil or ask.

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1.6 Files and Directories

mm-default-directory
The default directory for saving attachments. If nil use default-directory.
mm-tmp-directory
Directory for storing temporary files.
mm-file-name-rewrite-functions
A list of functions used for rewriting file names of MIME parts. Each function is applied successively to the file name. Ready-made functions include
mm-file-name-delete-control
Delete all control characters.
mm-file-name-delete-gotchas
Delete characters that could have unintended consequences when used with flawed shell scripts, i.e., ‘|’, ‘>’ and ‘<’; and ‘-’, ‘.’ as the first character.
mm-file-name-delete-whitespace
Remove all whitespace.
mm-file-name-trim-whitespace
Remove leading and trailing whitespace.
mm-file-name-collapse-whitespace
Collapse multiple whitespace characters.
mm-file-name-replace-whitespace
Replace whitespace with underscores. Set the variable mm-file-name-replace-whitespace to any other string if you do not like underscores.

The standard Emacs functions capitalize, downcase, upcase and upcase-initials might also prove useful.

mm-path-name-rewrite-functions
List of functions used for rewriting the full file names of MIME parts. This is used when viewing parts externally, and is meant for transforming the absolute name so that non-compliant programs can find the file where it's saved.

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1.7 New Viewers

Here's an example viewer for displaying text/enriched inline: 

     (defun mm-display-enriched-inline (handle)
       (let (text)
         (with-temp-buffer
           (mm-insert-part handle)
           (save-window-excursion
             (enriched-decode (point-min) (point-max))
             (setq text (buffer-string))))
         (mm-insert-inline handle text)))

We see that the function takes a MIME handle as its parameter. It then goes to a temporary buffer, inserts the text of the part, does some work on the text, stores the result, goes back to the buffer it was called from and inserts the result.

The two important helper functions here are mm-insert-part and mm-insert-inline. The first function inserts the text of the handle in the current buffer. It handles charset and/or content transfer decoding. The second function just inserts whatever text you tell it to insert, but it also sets things up so that the text can be “undisplayed” in a convenient manner.

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2 Composing

Creating a MIME message is boring and non-trivial. Therefore, a library called mml has been defined that parses a language called MML (MIME Meta Language) and generates MIME messages.

The main interface function is mml-generate-mime. It will examine the contents of the current (narrowed-to) buffer and return a string containing the MIME message.

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2.1 Simple MML Example

Here's a simple ‘multipart/alternative’: 

     <#multipart type=alternative>
     This is a plain text part.
     <#part type=text/enriched>
     <center>This is a centered enriched part</center>
     <#/multipart>

After running this through mml-generate-mime, we get this: 

     Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=-=-="
     
     
     --=-=-=
     
     
     This is a plain text part.
     
     --=-=-=
     Content-Type: text/enriched
     
     
     <center>This is a centered enriched part</center>
     
     --=-=-=--

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2.2 MML Definition

The MML language is very simple. It looks a bit like an SGML application, but it's not.

The main concept of MML is the part. Each part can be of a different type or use a different charset. The way to delineate a part is with a ‘<#part ...>’ tag. Multipart parts can be introduced with the ‘<#multipart ...>’ tag. Parts are ended by the ‘<#/part>’ or ‘<#/multipart>’ tags. Parts started with the ‘<#part ...>’ tags are also closed by the next open tag.

There's also the ‘<#external ...>’ tag. These introduce ‘external/message-body’ parts.

Each tag can contain zero or more parameters on the form ‘parameter=value’. The values may be enclosed in quotation marks, but that's not necessary unless the value contains white space. So ‘filename=/home/user/#hello$^yes’ is perfectly valid.

The following parameters have meaning in MML; parameters that have no meaning are ignored. The MML parameter names are the same as the MIME parameter names; the things in the parentheses say which header it will be used in.

‘type’
The MIME type of the part (Content-Type).
‘filename’
Use the contents of the file in the body of the part (Content-Disposition).
‘charset’
The contents of the body of the part are to be encoded in the character set specified (Content-Type). See Charset Translation.
‘name’
Might be used to suggest a file name if the part is to be saved to a file (Content-Type).
‘disposition’
Valid values are ‘inline’ and ‘attachment’ (Content-Disposition).
‘encoding’
Valid values are ‘7bit’, ‘8bit’, ‘quoted-printable’ and ‘base64’ (Content-Transfer-Encoding). See Charset Translation.
‘description’
A description of the part (Content-Description).
‘creation-date’
RFC822 date when the part was created (Content-Disposition).
‘modification-date’
RFC822 date when the part was modified (Content-Disposition).
‘read-date’
RFC822 date when the part was read (Content-Disposition).
‘recipients’
Who to encrypt/sign the part to. This field is used to override any auto-detection based on the To/CC headers.
‘sender’
Identity used to sign the part. This field is used to override the default key used.
‘size’
The size (in octets) of the part (Content-Disposition).
‘sign’
What technology to sign this MML part with (smime, pgp or pgpmime)
‘encrypt’
What technology to encrypt this MML part with (smime, pgp or pgpmime)

Parameters for ‘text/plain’:

‘format’
Formatting parameter for the text, valid values include ‘fixed’ (the default) and ‘flowed’. Normally you do not specify this manually, since it requires the textual body to be formatted in a special way described in RFC 2646. See Flowed text.

Parameters for ‘application/octet-stream’:

‘type’
Type of the part; informal—meant for human readers (Content-Type).

Parameters for ‘message/external-body’:

‘access-type’
A word indicating the supported access mechanism by which the file may be obtained. Values include ‘ftp’, ‘anon-ftp’, ‘tftp’, ‘localfile’, and ‘mailserver’. (Content-Type.)
‘expiration’
The RFC822 date after which the file may no longer be fetched. (Content-Type.)
‘size’
The size (in octets) of the file. (Content-Type.)
‘permission’
Valid values are ‘read’ and ‘read-write’ (Content-Type).

Parameters for ‘sign=smime’:

‘keyfile’
File containing key and certificate for signer.

Parameters for ‘encrypt=smime’:

‘certfile’
File containing certificate for recipient.

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2.3 Advanced MML Example

Here's a complex multipart message. It's a ‘multipart/mixed’ that contains many parts, one of which is a ‘multipart/alternative’. 

     <#multipart type=mixed>
     <#part type=image/jpeg filename=~/rms.jpg disposition=inline>
     <#multipart type=alternative>
     This is a plain text part.
     <#part type=text/enriched name=enriched.txt>
     <center>This is a centered enriched part</center>
     <#/multipart>
     This is a new plain text part.
     <#part disposition=attachment>
     This plain text part is an attachment.
     <#/multipart>

And this is the resulting MIME message: 

     Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=-=-="
     
     
     --=-=-=
     
     
     
     --=-=-=
     Content-Type: image/jpeg;
      filename="~/rms.jpg"
     Content-Disposition: inline;
      filename="~/rms.jpg"
     Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
     
     /9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wBDAAgGBgcGBQgHBwcJCQgKDBQNDAsLDBkSEw8UHRof
     Hh0aHBwgJC4nICIsIxwcKDcpLDAxNDQ0Hyc5PTgyPC4zNDL/wAALCAAwADABAREA/8QAHwAA
     AQUBAQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAAECAwQFBgcICQoL/8QAtRAAAgEDAwIEAwUFBAQAAAF9AQIDAAQR
     BRIhMUEGE1FhByJxFDKBkaEII0KxwRVS0fAkM2JyggkKFhcYGRolJicoKSo0NTY3ODk6Q0RF
     RkdISUpTVFVWV1hZWmNkZWZnaGlqc3R1dnd4eXqDhIWGh4iJipKTlJWWl5iZmqKjpKWmp6ip
     qrKztLW2t7i5usLDxMXGx8jJytLT1NXW19jZ2uHi4+Tl5ufo6erx8vP09fb3+Pn6/9oACAEB
     AAA/AO/rifFHjldNuGsrDa0qcSSHkA+gHrXKw+LtWLrMb+RgTyhbr+HSug07xNqV9fQtZrNI
     AyiaE/NuBPOOOP0rvRNE880KOC8TbXXGCv1FPqjrF4LDR7u5L7SkTFT/ALWOP1xXgTuXfc7E
     sx6nua6rwp4IvvEM8chCxWxOdzn7wz6V9AaB4S07w9p5itow0rDLSY5Pt9K43xO66P4xs71m
     2QXiGCbA4yOVJ9+1aYORkdK434lyNH4ahCnG66VT9Nj15JFbPdX0MS43M4VQf5/yr2vSpLnw
     5ZW8dlCZ8KFXjOPX0/mK6rSPEGt3Angu44fNEReHYNvIH3TzXDeKNO8RX+kSX2ouZkicTIOc
     L+g7E810ulFjpVtv3bwgB3HJyK5L4quY/C9sVxk3ij/xx6850u7t1mtp/wDlpEw3An3Jr3Dw
     34gsbWza4nBlhC5LDsaW6+IFgupQyCF3iHH7gA7c9R9ay7zx6t7aX9jHC4smhfBkGCvHGfrm
     tLQ7hbnRrV1GPkAP1x1/Hr+Ncr8Vzjwrbf8AX6v/AKA9eQRyYlQk8Yx9K6XTNbkgia2ciSIn
     7p5Ga9Atte0LTLKO6it4i7dVRFJDcZ4PvXN+JvEMF9bILVGXJLSZ4zkjivRPDaeX4b08HOTC
     pOffmua+KkbS+GLVUGT9tT/0B68eeIpIFYjB70+OOVXyoOM9+M1eaWeCLzHPyHGO/NVWvJJm
     jQ8KGH1NfQWhXSXmh2c8eArRLwO3HSv/2Q==
     
     --=-=-=
     Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="==-=-="
     
     
     --==-=-=
     
     
     This is a plain text part.
     
     --==-=-=
     Content-Type: text/enriched;
      name="enriched.txt"
     
     
     <center>This is a centered enriched part</center>
     
     --==-=-=--
     
     --=-=-=
     
     This is a new plain text part.
     
     --=-=-=
     Content-Disposition: attachment
     
     
     This plain text part is an attachment.
     
     --=-=-=--

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2.4 Encoding Customization

mm-body-charset-encoding-alist
Mapping from MIME charset to encoding to use. This variable is usually used except, e.g., when other requirements force a specific encoding (digitally signed messages require 7bit encodings). The default is 
          ((iso-2022-jp . 7bit)
           (iso-2022-jp-2 . 7bit)
           (utf-16 . base64)
           (utf-16be . base64)
           (utf-16le . base64))

As an example, if you do not want to have ISO-8859-1 characters quoted-printable encoded, you may add (iso-8859-1 . 8bit) to this variable. You can override this setting on a per-message basis by using the encoding MML tag (see MML Definition).

mm-coding-system-priorities
Prioritize coding systems to use for outgoing messages. The default is nil, which means to use the defaults in Emacs, but is (iso-8859-1 iso-2022-jp iso-2022-jp-2 shift_jis utf-8) when running Emacs in the Japanese language environment. It is a list of coding system symbols (aliases of coding systems are also allowed, use M-x describe-coding-system to make sure you are specifying correct coding system names). For example, if you have configured Emacs to prefer UTF-8, but wish that outgoing messages should be sent in ISO-8859-1 if possible, you can set this variable to (iso-8859-1). You can override this setting on a per-message basis by using the charset MML tag (see MML Definition).

As different hierarchies prefer different charsets, you may want to set mm-coding-system-priorities according to the hierarchy in Gnus. Here's an example: 

          (add-to-list 'gnus-newsgroup-variables 'mm-coding-system-priorities)
          (setq gnus-parameters
                (nconc
                 ;; Some charsets are just examples!
                 '(("^cn\\." ;; Chinese
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities
                     '(iso-8859-1 cn-big5 chinese-iso-7bit utf-8)))
                   ("^cz\\.\\|^pl\\." ;; Central and Eastern European
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities '(iso-8859-2 utf-8)))
                   ("^de\\." ;; German language
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities '(iso-8859-1 iso-8859-15 utf-8)))
                   ("^fr\\." ;; French
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities '(iso-8859-15 iso-8859-1 utf-8)))
                   ("^fj\\." ;; Japanese
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities
                     '(iso-8859-1 iso-2022-jp iso-2022-jp-2 shift_jis utf-8)))
                   ("^ru\\." ;; Cyrillic
                    (mm-coding-system-priorities
                     '(koi8-r iso-8859-5 iso-8859-1 utf-8))))
                 gnus-parameters))

mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults
Mapping from MIME types to encoding to use. This variable is usually used except, e.g., when other requirements force a safer encoding (digitally signed messages require 7bit encoding). Besides the normal MIME encodings, qp-or-base64 may be used to indicate that for each case the most efficient of quoted-printable and base64 should be used.

qp-or-base64 has another effect. It will fold long lines so that MIME parts may not be broken by MTA. So do quoted-printable and base64.

Note that it affects body encoding only when a part is a raw forwarded message (which will be made by gnus-summary-mail-forward with the arg 2 for example) or is neither the ‘text/*’ type nor the ‘message/*’ type. Even though in those cases, you can override this setting on a per-message basis by using the encoding MML tag (see MML Definition).

mm-use-ultra-safe-encoding
When this is non-nil, it means that textual parts are encoded as quoted-printable if they contain lines longer than 76 characters or starting with "From " in the body. Non-7bit encodings (8bit, binary) are generally disallowed. This reduce the probability that a non-8bit clean MTA or MDA changes the message. This should never be set directly, but bound by other functions when necessary (e.g., when encoding messages that are to be digitally signed).

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2.5 Charset Translation

During translation from MML to MIME, for each MIME part which has been composed inside Emacs, an appropriate charset has to be chosen.

If you are running a non-mule Emacs, this process is simple: If the part contains any non-ASCII (8-bit) characters, the MIME charset given by mail-parse-charset (a symbol) is used. (Never set this variable directly, though. If you want to change the default charset, please consult the documentation of the package which you use to process MIME messages. See Various Message Variables, for example.) If there are only ASCII characters, the MIME charset US-ASCII is used, of course.

Things are slightly more complicated when running Emacs with mule support. In this case, a list of the mule charsets used in the part is obtained, and the mule charsets are translated to MIME charsets by consulting the table provided by Emacs itself or the variable mm-mime-mule-charset-alist for XEmacs. If this results in a single MIME charset, this is used to encode the part. But if the resulting list of MIME charsets contains more than one element, two things can happen: If it is possible to encode the part via UTF-8, this charset is used. (For this, Emacs must support the utf-8 coding system, and the part must consist entirely of characters which have Unicode counterparts.) If UTF-8 is not available for some reason, the part is split into several ones, so that each one can be encoded with a single MIME charset. The part can only be split at line boundaries, though—if more than one MIME charset is required to encode a single line, it is not possible to encode the part.

When running Emacs with mule support, the preferences for which coding system to use is inherited from Emacs itself. This means that if Emacs is set up to prefer UTF-8, it will be used when encoding messages. You can modify this by altering the mm-coding-system-priorities variable though (see Encoding Customization).

The charset to be used can be overridden by setting the charset MML tag (see MML Definition) when composing the message.

The encoding of characters (quoted-printable, 8bit, etc.) is orthogonal to the discussion here, and is controlled by the variables mm-body-charset-encoding-alist and mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults (see Encoding Customization).

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2.6 Conversion

A (multipart) MIME message can be converted to MML with the mime-to-mml function. It works on the message in the current buffer, and substitutes MML markup for MIME boundaries. Non-textual parts do not have their contents in the buffer, but instead have the contents in separate buffers that are referred to from the MML tags.

An MML message can be converted back to MIME by the mml-to-mime function.

These functions are in certain senses “lossy”—you will not get back an identical message if you run mime-to-mml and then mml-to-mime. Not only will trivial things like the order of the headers differ, but the contents of the headers may also be different. For instance, the original message may use base64 encoding on text, while mml-to-mime may decide to use quoted-printable encoding, and so on.

In essence, however, these two functions should be the inverse of each other. The resulting contents of the message should remain equivalent, if not identical.

Previous: Conversion, Up: Composing

2.7 Flowed text

The Emacs MIME library will respect the use-hard-newlines variable (see Hard and Soft Newlines) when encoding a message, and the “format=flowed” Content-Type parameter when decoding a message.

On encoding text, regardless of use-hard-newlines, lines terminated by soft newline characters are filled together and wrapped after the column decided by fill-flowed-encode-column. Quotation marks (matching ‘^>* ?’) are respected. The variable controls how the text will look in a client that does not support flowed text, the default is to wrap after 66 characters. If hard newline characters are not present in the buffer, no flow encoding occurs.

You can customize the value of the mml-enable-flowed variable to enable or disable the flowed encoding usage when newline characters are present in the buffer.

On decoding flowed text, lines with soft newline characters are filled together and wrapped after the column decided by fill-flowed-display-column. The default is to wrap after fill-column.

mm-fill-flowed
If non-nil a format=flowed article will be displayed flowed.

Next: , Previous: Composing, Up: Top

3 Interface Functions

The mail-parse library is an abstraction over the actual low-level libraries that are described in the next chapter.

Standards change, and so programs have to change to fit in the new mold. For instance, RFC2045 describes a syntax for the Content-Type header that only allows ASCII characters in the parameter list. RFC2231 expands on RFC2045 syntax to provide a scheme for continuation headers and non-ASCII characters.

The traditional way to deal with this is just to update the library functions to parse the new syntax. However, this is sometimes the wrong thing to do. In some instances it may be vital to be able to understand both the old syntax as well as the new syntax, and if there is only one library, one must choose between the old version of the library and the new version of the library.

The Emacs MIME library takes a different tack. It defines a series of low-level libraries (rfc2047.el, rfc2231.el and so on) that parses strictly according to the corresponding standard. However, normal programs would not use the functions provided by these libraries directly, but instead use the functions provided by the mail-parse library. The functions in this library are just aliases to the corresponding functions in the latest low-level libraries. Using this scheme, programs get a consistent interface they can use, and library developers are free to create write code that handles new standards.

The following functions are defined by this library:

mail-header-parse-content-type
Parse a Content-Type header and return a list on the following format: 
          ("type/subtype"
           (attribute1 . value1)
           (attribute2 . value2)
           ...)

Here's an example: 

          (mail-header-parse-content-type
           "image/gif; name=\"b980912.gif\"")
          ⇒ ("image/gif" (name . "b980912.gif"))

mail-header-parse-content-disposition
Parse a Content-Disposition header and return a list on the same format as the function above.
mail-content-type-get
Takes two parameters—a list on the format above, and an attribute. Returns the value of the attribute. 
          (mail-content-type-get
           '("image/gif" (name . "b980912.gif")) 'name)
          ⇒ "b980912.gif"

mail-header-encode-parameter
Takes a parameter string and returns an encoded version of the string. This is used for parameters in headers like Content-Type and Content-Disposition.
mail-header-remove-comments
Return a comment-free version of a header. 
          (mail-header-remove-comments
           "Gnus/5.070027 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.27) (Finnish Landrace)")
          ⇒ "Gnus/5.070027  "

mail-header-remove-whitespace
Remove linear white space from a header. Space inside quoted strings and comments is preserved. 
          (mail-header-remove-whitespace
           "image/gif; name=\"Name with spaces\"")
          ⇒ "image/gif;name=\"Name with spaces\""

mail-header-get-comment
Return the last comment in a header. 
          (mail-header-get-comment
           "Gnus/5.070027 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.27) (Finnish Landrace)")
          ⇒ "Finnish Landrace"

mail-header-parse-address
Parse an address and return a list containing the mailbox and the plaintext name. 
          (mail-header-parse-address
           "Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>")
          ⇒ ("hniksic@srce.hr" . "Hrvoje Niksic")

mail-header-parse-addresses
Parse a string with list of addresses and return a list of elements like the one described above. 
          (mail-header-parse-addresses
           "Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>, Steinar Bang <sb@metis.no>")
          ⇒ (("hniksic@srce.hr" . "Hrvoje Niksic")
               ("sb@metis.no" . "Steinar Bang"))

mail-header-parse-date
Parse a date string and return an Emacs time structure.
mail-narrow-to-head
Narrow the buffer to the header section of the buffer. Point is placed at the beginning of the narrowed buffer.
mail-header-narrow-to-field
Narrow the buffer to the header under point. Understands continuation headers.
mail-header-fold-field
Fold the header under point.
mail-header-unfold-field
Unfold the header under point.
mail-header-field-value
Return the value of the field under point.
mail-encode-encoded-word-region
Encode the non-ASCII words in the region. For instance, ‘Naïve’ is encoded as ‘=?iso-8859-1?q?Na=EFve?=’.
mail-encode-encoded-word-buffer
Encode the non-ASCII words in the current buffer. This function is meant to be called narrowed to the headers of a message.
mail-encode-encoded-word-string
Encode the words that need encoding in a string, and return the result. 
          (mail-encode-encoded-word-string
           "This is naïve, baby")
          ⇒ "This is =?iso-8859-1?q?na=EFve,?= baby"

mail-decode-encoded-word-region
Decode the encoded words in the region.
mail-decode-encoded-word-string
Decode the encoded words in the string and return the result. 
          (mail-decode-encoded-word-string
           "This is =?iso-8859-1?q?na=EFve,?= baby")
          ⇒ "This is naïve, baby"

Currently, mail-parse is an abstraction over ietf-drums, rfc2047, rfc2045 and rfc2231. These are documented in the subsequent sections.

Next: , Previous: Interface Functions, Up: Top

4 Basic Functions

This chapter describes the basic, ground-level functions for parsing and handling. Covered here is parsing From lines, removing comments from header lines, decoding encoded words, parsing date headers and so on. High-level functionality is dealt with in the first chapter (see Decoding and Viewing).

Next: , Up: Basic Functions

4.1 rfc2045

RFC2045 is the “main” MIME document, and as such, one would imagine that there would be a lot to implement. But there isn't, since most of the implementation details are delegated to the subsequent RFCs.

So rfc2045.el has only a single function:

rfc2045-encode-string
Takes a parameter and a value and returns a ‘PARAM=VALUE’ string. value will be quoted if there are non-safe characters in it.

Next: , Previous: rfc2045, Up: Basic Functions

4.2 rfc2231

RFC2231 defines a syntax for the Content-Type and Content-Disposition headers. Its snappy name is MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations.

In short, these headers look something like this: 

     Content-Type: application/x-stuff;
      title*0*=us-ascii'en'This%20is%20even%20more%20;
      title*1*=%2A%2A%2Afun%2A%2A%2A%20;
      title*2="isn't it!"

They usually aren't this bad, though.

The following functions are defined by this library:

rfc2231-parse-string
Parse a Content-Type header and return a list describing its elements. 
          (rfc2231-parse-string
           "application/x-stuff;
           title*0*=us-ascii'en'This%20is%20even%20more%20;
           title*1*=%2A%2A%2Afun%2A%2A%2A%20;
           title*2=\"isn't it!\"")
          ⇒ ("application/x-stuff"
              (title . "This is even more ***fun*** isn't it!"))

rfc2231-get-value
Takes one of the lists on the format above and returns the value of the specified attribute.
rfc2231-encode-string
Encode a parameter in headers likes Content-Type and Content-Disposition.

Next: , Previous: rfc2231, Up: Basic Functions

4.3 ietf-drums

drums is an IETF working group that is working on the replacement for RFC822.

The functions provided by this library include:

ietf-drums-remove-comments
Remove the comments from the argument and return the results.
ietf-drums-remove-whitespace
Remove linear white space from the string and return the results. Spaces inside quoted strings and comments are left untouched.
ietf-drums-get-comment
Return the last most comment from the string.
ietf-drums-parse-address
Parse an address string and return a list that contains the mailbox and the plain text name.
ietf-drums-parse-addresses
Parse a string that contains any number of comma-separated addresses and return a list that contains mailbox/plain text pairs.
ietf-drums-parse-date
Parse a date string and return an Emacs time structure.
ietf-drums-narrow-to-header
Narrow the buffer to the header section of the current buffer.

Next: , Previous: ietf-drums, Up: Basic Functions

4.4 rfc2047

RFC2047 (Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text) specifies how non-ASCII text in headers are to be encoded. This is actually rather complicated, so a number of variables are necessary to tweak what this library does.

The following variables are tweakable:

rfc2047-header-encoding-alist
This is an alist of header / encoding-type pairs. Its main purpose is to prevent encoding of certain headers.

The keys can either be header regexps, or t.

The values can be nil, in which case the header(s) in question won't be encoded, mime, which means that they will be encoded, or address-mime, which means the header(s) will be encoded carefully assuming they contain addresses.

rfc2047-charset-encoding-alist
RFC2047 specifies two forms of encoding—Q (a Quoted-Printable-like encoding) and B (base64). This alist specifies which charset should use which encoding.
rfc2047-encode-function-alist
This is an alist of encoding / function pairs. The encodings are Q, B and nil.
rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp
When decoding words, this library looks for matches to this regexp.
rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp-loose
This is a version from which the regexp for the Q encoding pattern of rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp is made loose.
rfc2047-encode-encoded-words
The boolean variable specifies whether encoded words (e.g., ‘=?us-ascii?q?hello?=’) should be encoded again. rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp is used to look for such words.
rfc2047-allow-irregular-q-encoded-words
The boolean variable specifies whether irregular Q encoded words (e.g., ‘=?us-ascii?q?hello??=’) should be decoded. If it is non-nil, rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp-loose is used instead of rfc2047-encoded-word-regexp to look for encoded words.

Those were the variables, and these are this functions:

rfc2047-narrow-to-field
Narrow the buffer to the header on the current line.
rfc2047-encode-message-header
Should be called narrowed to the header of a message. Encodes according to rfc2047-header-encoding-alist.
rfc2047-encode-region
Encodes all encodable words in the region specified.
rfc2047-encode-string
Encode a string and return the results.
rfc2047-decode-region
Decode the encoded words in the region.
rfc2047-decode-string
Decode a string and return the results.
rfc2047-encode-parameter
Encode a parameter in the RFC2047-like style. This is a substitution for the rfc2231-encode-string function, that is the standard but many mailers don't support it. See rfc2231.

Next: , Previous: rfc2047, Up: Basic Functions

4.5 time-date

While not really a part of the MIME library, it is convenient to document this library here. It deals with parsing Date headers and manipulating time. (Not by using tesseracts, though, I'm sorry to say.)

These functions convert between five formats: A date string, an Emacs time structure, a decoded time list, a second number, and a day number.

Here's a bunch of time/date/second/day examples: 

     (parse-time-string "Sat Sep 12 12:21:54 1998 +0200")
     ⇒ (54 21 12 12 9 1998 6 nil 7200)
     
     (date-to-time "Sat Sep 12 12:21:54 1998 +0200")
     ⇒ (13818 19266)
     
     (time-to-seconds '(13818 19266))
     ⇒ 905595714.0
     
     (seconds-to-time 905595714.0)
     ⇒ (13818 19266 0 0)
     
     (time-to-days '(13818 19266))
     ⇒ 729644
     
     (days-to-time 729644)
     ⇒ (961933 512)
     
     (time-since '(13818 19266))
     ⇒ (6797 9607 984839 247000)
     
     (time-less-p '(13818 19266) '(13818 19145))
     ⇒ nil
     
     (subtract-time '(13818 19266) '(13818 19145))
     ⇒ (0 121)
     
     (days-between "Sat Sep 12 12:21:54 1998 +0200"
                   "Sat Sep 07 12:21:54 1998 +0200")
     ⇒ 5
     
     (date-leap-year-p 2000)
     ⇒ t
     
     (time-to-day-in-year '(13818 19266))
     ⇒ 255
     
     (time-to-number-of-days
      (time-since
       (date-to-time "Mon, 01 Jan 2001 02:22:26 GMT")))
     ⇒ 4314.095589286675

And finally, we have safe-date-to-time, which does the same as date-to-time, but returns a zero time if the date is syntactically malformed.

The five data representations used are the following:

date
An RFC822 (or similar) date string. For instance: "Sat Sep 12 12:21:54 1998 +0200".
time
An internal Emacs time. For instance: (13818 26466 0 0).
seconds
A floating point representation of the internal Emacs time. For instance: 905595714.0.
days
An integer number representing the number of days since 00000101. For instance: 729644.
decoded time
A list of decoded time. For instance: (54 21 12 12 9 1998 6 t 7200).

All the examples above represent the same moment.

These are the functions available:

date-to-time
Take a date and return a time.
time-to-seconds
Take a time and return seconds. Note that Emacs has a built-in function, float-time, that does this.
seconds-to-time
Take seconds and return a time.
time-to-days
Take a time and return days.
days-to-time
Take days and return a time.
date-to-day
Take a date and return days.
time-to-number-of-days
Take a time and return the number of days that represents.
safe-date-to-time
Take a date and return a time. If the date is not syntactically valid, return a “zero” time.
time-less-p
Take two times and say whether the first time is less (i.e., earlier) than the second time.
time-since
Take a time and return a time saying how long it was since that time.
subtract-time
Take two times and subtract the second from the first. I.e., return the time between the two times.
days-between
Take two days and return the number of days between those two days.
date-leap-year-p
Take a year number and say whether it's a leap year.
time-to-day-in-year
Take a time and return the day number within the year that the time is in.

Next: , Previous: time-date, Up: Basic Functions

4.6 qp

This library deals with decoding and encoding Quoted-Printable text.

Very briefly explained, qp encoding means translating all 8-bit characters (and lots of control characters) into things that look like ‘=EF’; that is, an equal sign followed by the byte encoded as a hex string.

The following functions are defined by the library:

quoted-printable-decode-region
QP-decode all the encoded text in the specified region.
quoted-printable-decode-string
Decode the QP-encoded text in a string and return the results.
quoted-printable-encode-region
QP-encode all the encodable characters in the specified region. The third optional parameter fold specifies whether to fold long lines. (Long here means 72.)
quoted-printable-encode-string
QP-encode all the encodable characters in a string and return the results.

Next: , Previous: qp, Up: Basic Functions

4.7 base64

Base64 is an encoding that encodes three bytes into four characters, thereby increasing the size by about 33%. The alphabet used for encoding is very resistant to mangling during transit.

The following functions are defined by this library:

base64-encode-region
base64 encode the selected region. Return the length of the encoded text. Optional third argument no-line-break means do not break long lines into shorter lines.
base64-encode-string
base64 encode a string and return the result.
base64-decode-region
base64 decode the selected region. Return the length of the decoded text. If the region can't be decoded, return nil and don't modify the buffer.
base64-decode-string
base64 decode a string and return the result. If the string can't be decoded, nil is returned.

Next: , Previous: base64, Up: Basic Functions

4.8 binhex

binhex is an encoding that originated in Macintosh environments. The following function is supplied to deal with these:

binhex-decode-region
Decode the encoded text in the region. If given a third parameter, only decode the binhex header and return the filename.

Next: , Previous: binhex, Up: Basic Functions

4.9 uudecode

uuencode is probably still the most popular encoding of binaries used on Usenet, although base64 rules the mail world.

The following function is supplied by this package:

uudecode-decode-region
Decode the text in the region.

Next: , Previous: uudecode, Up: Basic Functions

4.10 yenc

yenc is used for encoding binaries on Usenet. The following function is supplied by this package:

yenc-decode-region
Decode the encoded text in the region.

Next: , Previous: yenc, Up: Basic Functions

4.11 rfc1843

RFC1843 deals with mixing Chinese and ASCII characters in messages. In essence, RFC1843 switches between ASCII and Chinese by doing this: 

     This sentence is in ASCII.
     The next sentence is in GB.~{<:Ky2;S{#,NpJ)l6HK!#~}Bye.

Simple enough, and widely used in China.

The following functions are available to handle this encoding:

rfc1843-decode-region
Decode HZ-encoded text in the region.
rfc1843-decode-string
Decode a HZ-encoded string and return the result.

Previous: rfc1843, Up: Basic Functions

4.12 mailcap

The ~/.mailcap file is parsed by most MIME-aware message handlers and describes how elements are supposed to be displayed. Here's an example file: 

     image/*; gimp -8 %s
     audio/wav; wavplayer %s
     application/msword; catdoc %s ; copiousoutput ; nametemplate=%s.doc

This says that all image files should be displayed with gimp, that WAVE audio files should be played by wavplayer, and that MS-WORD files should be inlined by catdoc.

The mailcap library parses this file, and provides functions for matching types.

mailcap-mime-data
This variable is an alist of alists containing backup viewing rules.

Interface functions:

mailcap-parse-mailcaps
Parse the ~/.mailcap file.
mailcap-mime-info
Takes a MIME type as its argument and returns the matching viewer.

Next: , Previous: Basic Functions, Up: Top

5 Standards

The Emacs MIME library implements handling of various elements according to a (somewhat) large number of RFCs, drafts and standards documents. This chapter lists the relevant ones. They can all be fetched from http://quimby.gnus.org/notes/.

RFC822
STD11
Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages.
RFC1036
Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages
RFC2045
Format of Internet Message Bodies
RFC2046
Media Types
RFC2047
Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text
RFC2048
Registration Procedures
RFC2049
Conformance Criteria and Examples
RFC2231
MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations
RFC1843
HZ—A Data Format for Exchanging Files of Arbitrarily Mixed Chinese and ASCII characters
draft-ietf-drums-msg-fmt-05.txt
Draft for the successor of RFC822
RFC2112
The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type
RFC1892
The Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages
RFC2183
Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header Field
RFC2646
Documentation of the text/plain format parameter for flowed text.

Next: , Previous: Standards, Up: Top

6 GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008
     Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     http://fsf.org/
     
     Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
     of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
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    It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

  5. MODIFICATIONS

    You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

    1. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
    2. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
    3. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
    4. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
    5. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
    6. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
    7. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.
    8. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
    9. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
    10. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
    11. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
    12. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
    13. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
    14. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
    15. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

    If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

    You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

    You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

    The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

  6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

    You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.

    The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

    In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements.”

  7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

    You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

    You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

  8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

    A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

    If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.

  9. TRANSLATION

    Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.

    If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

  10. TERMINATION

    You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.

    However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

    Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.

    Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does not give you any rights to use it.

  11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

    The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

    Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.

  12. RELICENSING

    “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.

    “CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.

    “Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.

    An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.

    The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page: 

       Copyright (C)  year  your name.
       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
       under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
       or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
       with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover
       Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU
       Free Documentation License''.

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with...Texts.” line with this: 

         with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with
         the Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts
         being list.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

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7 Index

Footnotes

[1] See http://emacs-w3m.namazu.org/ for more information about emacs-w3m

[2] The command T will load all images. If you have set the option w3m-key-binding to info, use i or I instead.