RFC 7888 · PROPOSED STANDARD · 2016

IMAP4 Non-synchronizing Literals

Overview

RFC 7888, “IMAP4 Non-synchronizing Literals”, is a Proposed Standard document published in May 2016 by A. Melnikov. It obsoletes RFC 2088. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

The Internet Message Access Protocol (RFC 3501) contains the "literal" syntactic construct for communicating strings. When sending a literal from client to server, IMAP requires the client to wait for the server to send a command continuation request between sending the octet count and the string data. This document specifies an alternate form of literal that does not require this network round trip.

This document specifies 2 IMAP extensions: LITERAL+ and LITERAL-. LITERAL+ allows the alternate form of literals in all IMAP commands. LITERAL- is the same as LITERAL+, but it disallows the alternate form of literals unless they are 4096 bytes or less.

This document obsoletes RFC 2088.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Proposed Standard” means

An entry-level standards-track specification: stable, peer-reviewed and a solid basis for implementation, though it may still evolve before becoming an Internet Standard.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 7888 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

Relationships to other RFCs
This RFC obsoletes
RFC 2088
Other RFCs from 2016

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