As per Relevance of the word information, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group D.
Request for Comments: 1947 SENA S.A
Category: Informational May 1996
Greek Character Encoding for Electronic Mail
Status of This
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution
this memo is unlimited
Overview and
This document describes a standard encoding for electronic
[RFC822] containing Greek text and provides implementation guide
lines. The standard is based on MIME [RFC1521] and the ISO 8859-7
character encoding. Although the implementation of this standard
straightforward several non-standard but "functional" -
unlikely to inter-operate - alternatives are in common use. For
reason we highlight common implementation and mail user agent
errors
In order to transfer Greek text via electronic mail the text is
translated into the ISO 8859-7 character set, and then encoded
either the Base64 (preferable for text that is mainly Greek) or
Quoted-Printable (justifiable in cases where some Greek words
inside predominately Latin text) method, as defined in MIME
The following table provides most common Greek encodings (see
[RFC1345]):
0646 37 M7 51 MC 23 69 LG L1 G7 GO GC 28 97
---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -----------
0386 ea a2 86 cd 71 86 b6 Capital alpha with
0388 eb b8 8d ce 72 8d b8 Capital epsilon
0389 ec b9 8f d7 73 8f b9 Capital eta with
038a ed ba 90 d8 75 90 ba Capital iota with
038c ee bc 92 d9 76 92 bc Capital omicron
038e ef be 95 da 77 95 be Capital upsilon
038f f0 bf 98 df 78 98 bf Capital omega with
0390 c0 a1 fd a1 c0 Small iota with acute
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RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
0391 80 c1 a4 b0 41 a4 61 41 61 41 41 c1 Capital
0392 81 c2 a5 b5 42 a5 62 42 62 42 42 c2 Capital
0393 82 c3 a6 a1 43 a6 67 23 43 67 43 44 c3 Capital
0394 83 c4 a7 a2 44 a7 64 40 44 64 44 45 c4 Capital
0395 84 c5 a8 b6 45 a8 65 45 65 45 46 c5 Capital
0396 85 c6 a9 b7 46 a9 7a 46 7a 46 49 c6 Capital
0397 86 c7 aa b8 47 aa 68 47 68 47 4a c7 Capital
0398 87 c8 ac a3 48 ac 75 5c 48 75 48 4b c8 Capital
0399 88 c9 ad b9 49 ad 69 49 69 49 4c c9 Capital
039a 89 ca b5 ba 51 b5 6b 4b 6b 4a 4d ca Capital
039b 8a cb b6 a4 52 b6 6c 5e 4c 6c 4b 4e cb Capital
039c 8b cc b8 bb 53 b7 6d 4d 6d 4c 4f cc Capital
039d 8c cd b7 c1 54 b8 6e 4e 6e 4d 50 cd Capital
039e 8d ce bd a5 55 bd 6a 21 4f 6a 4e 51 ce Capital
039f 8e cf be c3 56 be 6f 50 6f 4f 52 cf Capital
03a0 8f d0 c6 a6 57 c6 70 3f 51 70 50 53 d0 Capital
03a1 90 d1 c7 c4 58 c7 72 52 72 51 55 d1 Capital
03a3 91 d3 cf aa 59 cf 73 5f 53 73 53 56 d3 Capital
03a4 92 d4 d0 c6 62 d0 74 54 74 54 58 d4 Capital
03a5 93 d5 d1 cb 63 d1 79 55 79 55 59 d5 Capital
03a6 94 d6 d2 bc 64 d2 66 5d 56 66 56 5a d6 Capital
03a7 95 d7 d3 cc 65 d3 78 58 78 57 5b d7 Capital
03a8 96 d8 d4 be 66 d4 63 3a 59 63 58 5c d8 Capital
03a9 97 d9 d5 bf 67 d5 76 5b 5a 76 59 5d d9 Capital
03aa da ab 91 da Capital iota
03ab db bd 96 db Capital upsilon
03ac e1 dc 9b c0 b1 9b dc Small alpha with
03ad e2 dd 9d db b2 9d dd Small epsilon with
03ae e3 de 9e dc b3 9e de Small eta with
03af e5 df 9f dd b5 9f df Small iota with
03b0 e0 fc fe fc e0 Small upsilon with
and
03b1 98 e1 d6 e1 8a d6 61 41 61 61 e1 Small
03b2 99 e2 d7 e2 8b d7 62 42 62 62 e2 Small
03b3 9a e3 d8 e7 8c d8 63 47 63 64 e3 Small
03b4 9b e4 dd e4 8d dd 64 44 64 65 e4 Small
03b5 9c e5 de e5 8e de 65 45 65 66 e5 Small
03b6 9d e6 e0 fa 8f e0 66 5a 66 69 e6 Small
03b7 9e e7 e1 e8 9a e1 67 48 67 6a e7 Small
03b8 9f e8 e2 f5 9b e2 68 55 68 6b e8 Small
03b9 a0 e9 e3 e9 9c e3 69 49 69 6c e9 Small
03ba a1 ea e4 eb 9d e4 6b 4b 6a 6d ea Small
03bb a2 eb e5 ec 9e e5 6c 4c 6b 6e eb Small
03bc a3 ec e6 ed 9f e6 6d 4d 6c 6f ec Small
03bd a4 ed e7 ee aa e7 6e 4e 6d 70 ed Small
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RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
03be a5 ee e8 ea ab e8 6f 4a 6e 71 ee Small
03bf a6 ef e9 ef ac e9 70 4f 6f 72 ef Small
03c0 a7 f0 ea f0 ad ea 71 50 70 73 f0 Small
03c1 a8 f1 eb f2 ae eb 72 52 71 75 f1 Small
03c2 aa f2 ed f7 af ed 77 57 72 77 f2 Small final
03c3 a9 f3 ec f3 ba ec 73 53 73 76 f3 Small
03c4 ab f4 ee f4 bb ee 74 54 74 78 f4 Small
03c5 ac f5 f2 f9 bc f2 75 59 75 79 f5 Small
03c6 ad f6 f3 e6 bd f3 76 46 76 7a f6 Small
03c7 ae f7 f4 f8 be f4 78 58 77 7b f7 Small
03c8 af f8 f6 e3 bf f6 79 43 78 7c f8 Small
03c9 e0 f9 fa f6 db fa 7a 56 79 7d f9 Small
03ca e4 fa a0 fb b4 a0 fa Small iota with
03cb e8 fb fb fc b8 fb fb Small upsilon
03cc e6 fc a2 de b6 a2 fc Small omicron with
03cd e7 fd a3 e0 b7 a3 fd Small upsilon with
03ce e9 fe fd f1 b9 fd fe Small omega with
Note: All values are in hexadecimal
The column headers refer to the following character sets
0646 The ISO 2DIS 10646 code
37 PC code page 737 also known as 437G. Note that some implementa
tions of this code page do not include capital letters with acute
M7 Character set 8859-7 as implemented in Microsoft Windows 3.1,
Microsoft Windows 3.11, and Microsoft Windows 95.
51 IBM code page 851.
MC The Greek code page implemented on the Apple Macintosh computers
23 IBM code page 423 (EBCDIC-CP-GR).
69 IBM code page 869.
LG Latin Greek (iso-ir-19).
L1 Latin Greek 1 (iso-ir-27). This page only contains the Greek cap
ital letters whose glyphs do not exist in the Latin alphabet.
other capital letters are rendered using the equivalent Latin let
ter (e.g. "Greek capital letter alpha" is rendered as "Latin capi
tal letter A"). When mapping "Latin Greek 1" text to ISO 8859-7
the Latin capital letters should only be transcribed to
equivalent Greek ones if a suitable heuristic determines that
Spinellis Informational [Page 3]
RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
specific Latin letters are used to represent Greek glyphs
G7 7 bit Greek (iso-ir-88).
GO Old 7 bit Greek (iso-ir-18).
GC Greek CCITT (iso-ir-150).
28 Character set ISO 5428:1980 (iso-ir-55).
97 The target character set ISO 8859-7:1987 (ELOT-928) (iso-ir-126).
MIME
A mail message that contains Greek text must contain at least
following MIME headers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7
Content-transfer-encoding: BASE64 | Quoted-
In the future, when all email systems implement fully
8-bit e-mail as defined in RFC 1425 and RFC 1426 the message
encoding phase described in this standard will be no
needed. In this case the requisite MIME headers are modified
follows
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7
Content-transfer-encoding: 8
Even when RFC 1425 is used, Q or B encoding will continue to
to message headers as detailed in the following section
It is recommended, although not required, to support Greek encod
ing in mail headers as specified in RFC 1522. Specifically,
B-encoding format is to be the default method used for
Greek text in RFC-822 mail headers, and the Q-encoding format
method to use for the exceptional case of encoding a single
word or letter in an otherwise Latin-character-based header
Spinellis Informational [Page 4]
RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
Below is a short example of Quoted-Printable encoded
email
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 96 20:15:03
From: Diomidis Spinellis
Subject: Sample Greek
To: Achilleas Voliotis
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-ID:
Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64
yuHr5+zd8eEsCgrU7yDl6+vn7enq/CDh6/bc4uf07yDh8O/05evl3/Th6SDh8PwgMjYg4/
7Ozh9OEuCg==
It is possible [RFC1428] (and unfortunately common practice)
set up an arrangement of mail user and transfer agents that
end users to communicate with Greek e-mail messages
violating a number of standards. Such arrangements are
to offer wide scale interoperability
One common error is to arrange the rendering and composition
Greek messages by rigging a mail user agent hosted in an
8859-1 environment to use a presentation font that contains
glyphs and a keyboard input method that generates Greek text
those glyphs. The resulting messages begin with header
indicating contents in the ISO 8859-1 character set and
text in a totally different encoding. Unfortunately
"solution" appears to "work" across similar systems and is
used
One other error is to tag Greek text generated on
Windows platforms as ISO 8859-7 without an
translation phase. It is important to note that the character
used by the Microsoft Windows Greek implementations is NOT
same as the ISO 8859-7 representation. First of all,
character set used to represent Greek characters differs
from the ISO 8859-7 encoding (this difference was instrumented
order to rectify the appearance of an early version of
Word for Windows in which the end-of-section symbol clashed
the "Greek capital alpha with acute" glyph). In addition,
number of 8-bit characters available on Greek
implementations are not part of the ISO 8859-7 character set
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RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
Note that the ISO 8859-7 encoding is equivalent to the
Standards Organisation ELOT-928 encoding
[ISO-8859] Information Processing -- 8-bit Single-Byte Coded
Character Sets, Part 7: Latin/Greek alphabet, ISO 8859-7,
1987.
[RFC822] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA
Text Messages", STD 11, RFC 822, UDEL, August 1982.
[RFC1345] Simonsen, K., "Character Mnemonics & Character Sets"
1345, Rationel Almen Planlaegning, June 1992.
[RFC1425] Klensin, J., Freed N., Rose M., Stefferud E., and D
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extensions", RFC 1425,
Nations University, Innosoft International, Inc.,
Beach Consulting, Inc., Network Management Associates
Inc., The Branch Office, February 1993.
[RFC1426] Klensin, J., Freed N., Rose M., Stefferud E., and D
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIME Transport",
RFC 1426, United Nations University,
International, Inc., Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.,
Management Associates, Inc., The Branch Office,
1993.
[RFC1428] Vaudreuil, G., "Transition of Internet Mail
Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME", RFC 1428, CNRI,
1993.
[RFC1521] Borenstein N., and N. Freed, "MIME (Multipurpose
Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying
Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies",
Bellcore, Innosoft, September 1993.
[RFC1522] Moore K., "MIME Part Two: Message Header Extensions
Non-ASCII Text", University of Tennessee, September 1993.
Spinellis Informational [Page 6]
RFC 1947 Greek Encoding for E-mail Messages May 1996
Security
Security issues are not discussed in this memo
Author's
Diomidis
SENA S.A
Kyprou 27
GR-152 47
Phone: +30 (1) 6854535
Fax: +30 (1) 6840631
EMail: D.Spinellis@senanet.
Spinellis Informational [Page 7]
if you see any problems within the linking, don't worry be happy,
this is version 0.1 of the Relevance System and you gotta expect some crappy subroutines sometimes,
just be content we did not write this in Java, which would have made this "bigger and better" HAHAHHA.
RFC documents can be found at I.E.T.F.
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