8. Summary

Using the MIME-Version, Content-Type, and Content-Transfer-Encoding header fields, it is possible to include, in a standardized way, arbitrary types of data objects with RFC 822 conformant mail messages. No restrictions imposed by either RFC 821 or RFC 822 are violated, and care has been taken to avoid problems caused by additional restrictions imposed by the characteristics of some Internet mail transport mechanisms (see Appendix B). The "multipart" and "message" Content-Types allow mixing and hierarchical structuring of objects of different types in a single message. Further Content- Types provide a standardized mechanism for tagging messages or body parts as audio, image, or several other kinds of data. A distinguished parameter syntax allows further specification of data format details, particularly the specification of alternate character sets. Additional optional header fields provide mechanisms for certain extensions deemed desirable by many implementors. Finally, a number of useful Content-Types are defined for general use by consenting user agents, notably message/partial, and message/external-body.