The RFC 822 Message Format

[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]

The Internet Request for Comments (RFC) 822 specification defines a message format containing a set of header fields and an optional body field. The header fields contain information about the message, such as who is the sender, the recipient, and the subject. The body, if present, is separated from the header fields by an empty line (\r\n).

The following code example illustrates a message in the RFC 822 message format:

From: someone@microsoft.com
To: someone_else@microsoft.com
Subject: As basic as it gets

This is the plain text body of the message.  Note the blank line 
between the header information and the body of the message.

Each header is comprised of a name and value separated by a colon character. The header value can span one or two lines folded or unfolded. The header ends when there is a carriage return sequence, followed by a non-white space character.

The RFC 822 message format is the basis for other message formats. The following code example illustrates the Usenet article/message format specified by RFC 0850.

From: someone@<yourcompany>.com
Subject: As basic as it gets
Newsgroups: comp.<yourcompany>.test

This is the plain text body of the message.  Note the blank line 
between the header information and the body of the message.
  

Note   The Usenet format specified by RFC 850 is based on RFC 822.