Glossary

Class KCodecs::Codec

MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME is an Internet Standard that extends the format of e-mail to support text in character sets other than US-ASCII, non-text attachments, multi-part message bodies, and header information in non-ASCII character sets. Virtually all human-written Internet e-mail and a fairly large proportion of automated e-mail is transmitted via SMTP in MIME format. Internet e-mail is so closely associated with the SMTP and MIME standards that it is sometimes called SMTP/MIME e-mail. The content types defined by MIME standards are also of growing importance outside of e-mail, such as in communication protocols like HTTP for the World Wide Web. MIME is also a fundamental component of communication protocols such as HTTP, which requires that data be transmitted in the context of e-mail-like messages, even though the data may not actually be e-mail.

codec: a program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream. Codecs encode data for storage or encryption and decode it for viewing or editing.

CRLF: a "Carriage Return (0x0D)" followed by a "Line Feed (0x0A)", two ASCII control characters used to represent a newline on some operating systems, notably DOS and Microsoft Windows.

LF: a "Line Feed (0x0A)" ASCII control character used to represent a newline on some operating systems, notably Unix, Unix-like, and Linux.

File kcodecsbase64.h

base64: a binary to text encoding scheme based on RFC1421.

RFC 1421: RFC that defines the Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part I: Message Encryption and Authentication Procedures.

RFC 2045: RFC that defines the MIME Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies.

RFC 2047: RFC that defines the MIME Part Three: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text.

RFC 2047B: Section 4.1 of RFC2047.

File kcodecsqp.h

quoted-printable: a binary to text encoding scheme based on Section 6.7 of RFC2045.

RFC 2047Q: Section 4.2 of RFC2047.

RFC 2231: RFC that defines the MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations.

File kcodecsuuencode.h

uuencode: a binary to text encoding scheme. For more information, see the Wikipedia Uuencode page.