[Users] Face header size limits

[Holger Berndt]

On Mo, 24.06.2013 12:56, Michael Schwendt wrote:

>Occasionally, I notice people including a "Face" header for a picture
>that exceeds the ancient size limits from 2005:
>
>   http://quimby.gnus.org/circus/face/
>   |
>   | Maximum encoded header length: 998 characters 

That's actually a limit not specifically by the faces header, but by
any line in a RFC 2822 conformant message ("Each line of characters
MUST be no more than 998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78
characters, excluding the CRLF.").

So, strictly speaking, those messages are broken, and it's pure
coincidence if it actually arrives at the destination.

On a less dogmatic point of view, nowadays, these limits are typically
not so hard anymore, and there's no real reason that a receiving side
should be limited to that anyways (or, as the RFC puts it, "Receiving
implementations would do well to handle an arbitrarily large number
of characters in a line for robustness sake.").

So I agree that it would be a nice improvement (though in my
personal oppinion not a particularly interesting one).

Holger