3.4.4. DELIMITING AND QUOTING CHARACTERS

The quote character (backslash) and characters that delimit syntactic units are not, generally, to be taken as data that are part of the delimited or quoted unit(s). In particular, the quotation-marks that define a quoted-string, the parentheses that define a comment and the backslash that quotes a following character are NOT part of the quoted-string, comment or quoted character. A quotation-mark that is to be part of a quoted-string, a parenthesis that is to be part of a comment and a backslash that is to be part of either must each be preceded by the quote-character backslash ("\"). Note that the syntax allows any character to be quoted within a quoted-string or comment; however only certain characters MUST be quoted to be included as data. These characters are the ones that are not part of the alternate text group (i.e., ctext or qtext).

The one exception to this rule is that a single SPACE is assumed to exist between contiguous words in a phrase, and this interpretation is independent of the actual number of LWSP-chars that the creator places between the words. To include more than one SPACE, the creator must make the LWSP-chars be part of a quoted-string.

Quotation marks that delimit a quoted string and backslashes that quote the following character should NOT accompany the quoted-string when the string is passed to processes that do not interpret data according to this specification (e.g., mail protocol servers).