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Canonical Text has a CR and LF at the end of each line. Which RFC are you referring to?

I am not aware of any single RFC that defines this, but every RFC that I have read, if it mentions end-of-line at all, it is defined as, or assumed to be, a carriage return followed by a newline. Even in cases where the native representation is different, it is converted to this format before transmission through the net, and then converted back. This is in some RFC-s referred to as "internet tradition", or "NetAscii". This is similar to the Network Byte Order. No matter what order your machine stores bytes (little/big endian), it gets converted to one standard format. It is also referred to as "NVT Standard". The only mention of a different end of line convention is in relation to EBCDIC, which has an explicit newline <NL> character. Here are excerpts from various RFCs that deal with, or mention, use of CRLF at the end of lines: Request For Comments: 1078 SRI-NIC TCP Port Service Multiplexer (TCPMUX) A TCP client connects to a foreign host on TCP port 1. It sends the service name followed by a carriage-return line-feed <CRLF>. acknowledgment, immediately followed by an optional message of explanation, terminated with a <CRLF>. If the reply was positive, Request for Comments: 1123 R. Braden, Editor Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Application and Support To allow interoperability between arbitrary Telnet clients and servers, the Telnet protocol defined a standard representation for a line terminator. Since the ASCII character set includes no explicit end-of-line character, systems have chosen various representations, e.g., CR, LF, and the sequence CR LF. The Telnet protocol chose the CR LF sequence as the standard for network transmission. Request for Comments: 1184 D. Borman, Editor Telnet Linemode Option line should be transmitted with "CR LF" as the line terminator. When responsible for doing all output processing. Specificly, it should send "CR LF" when it wants the "newline" function Request for Comments: 1204 D. Lee Message Posting Protocol (MPP) USER <SP> <username> <CRLF> PASS <SP> <password> <CRLF> DATA <CRLF> NOOP <CRLF> QUIT <CRLF> 354 Enter mail, end with <CRLF>.<CRLF> Request for Comments: 1288 Center for Discrete Mathematics and The Finger User Information Protocol Any data transferred MUST be in ASCII format, with no parity, and with lines ending in CRLF (ASCII 13 followed by ASCII 10). Request for Comments: 1312 Crynwr Software Message Send Protocol 2 New lines should be represented using the usual Netascii CR + LF. (Following the Internet tradition, a server should probably be prepared to accept a message in which some other end-of-line convention is followed, but a conforming client must use CR + LF.) NWG/RFC# 561 AKB KP RST JEW 5-SEP-73 11:19 18516 Standardizing Network Mail Headers RFC 561 / NIC 18516 Formal Syntax: <mailtext> ::= <header> <CRLF> <message> <headeritem> ::= <item> <CRLF> <message> ::= <line> <CRLF> ! <line> <CRLF> <message> <line> ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII characters except CR and LF <word> ::= a string containing any of the 128 ASCII characters except CR, LF, and SP <CRLF> ::= CR LF <SP> ::= space RFC 821 SIMPLE MAIL TRANSFER PROTOCOL MAIL <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF> RCPT <SP> TO:<forward-path> <CRLF> DATA <CRLF> SEND <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF> SOML <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF> SAML <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF> HELO <SP> <domain> <CRLF> QUIT <CRLF> The SMTP commands define the mail transfer or the mail system function requested by the user. SMTP commands are character strings terminated by <CRLF>. The command codes themselves are alphabetic characters terminated by <SP> if parameters follow and <CRLF> otherwise. RFC # 822 STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES A message consists of header fields and, optionally, a body. The body is simply a sequence of lines containing ASCII charac- ters. It is separated from the headers by a null line (i.e., a line with nothing preceding the CRLF). field = field-name ":" [ field-body ] CRLF field-body = field-body-contents [CRLF LWSP-char field-body] Each header field may be represented on exactly one line con- sisting of the name of the field and its body, and terminated by a CRLF; Request for Comments: 959 J. Reynolds FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL (FTP) In accordance with the NVT standard, the <CRLF> sequence should be used where necessary to denote the end of a line of text. (See the discussion of file structure at the end process will interpret appropriately. <CRLF>, in exactly this sequence, also denotes end-of-line. the FTP implementation should use the end-of-line sequence, <CRLF> for ASCII, or <NL> for EBCDIC text files, as the For the purpose of standardized transfer, the sending host will translate its internal end of line or end of record denotation into the representation prescribed by the transfer mode and file structure, and the receiving host will perform the inverse translation to its internal denotation. End-of-line in an ASCII or EBCDIC file with no record structure should be indicated by <CRLF> or <NL>, respectively. information. The data will be transferred in ASCII or EBCDIC type over the data connection as valid pathname strings separated by <CRLF> or <NL>. (Again the user must Request for Comments: 977 Phil Lapsley (U.C. Berkeley) Network News Transfer Protocol Each command line must be terminated by a CR-LF (Carriage Return - Line Feed) pair. that indicates that text will follow. Text is sent as a series of successive lines of textual matter, each terminated with CR-LF pair. -- Yanek Martinson mthvax.cs.miami.edu!safe0!yanek uunet!medexam!yanek this address preferred -->> yanek@novavax.nova.edu <<-- this address preferred Phone (305) 765-6300 daytime FAX: (305) 765-6708 1321 N 65 Way/Hollywood (305) 963-1931 evenings (305) 981-9812 Florida, 33024-5819