summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/rfc/rfc5259.txt
blob: 9d6ab8adc9a5df2d5fb5b332c1a2acc7b8df0d0c (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
Network Working Group                                   A. Melnikov, Ed.
Request for Comments: 5259                                     Isode Ltd
Category: Standards Track                                 P. Coates, Ed.
                                                        Sun Microsystems
                                                               July 2008


          Internet Message Access Protocol - CONVERT Extension

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   CONVERT defines extensions to IMAP allowing clients to request
   adaptation and/or transcoding of attachments.  Clients can specify
   the conversion details or allow servers to decide based on knowledge
   of client capabilities, on user or administrator preferences, or on
   server settings.



























Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 1]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Conventions Used in This Document  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Relation with Other IMAP Specifications  . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.1.  CAPABILITY Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Scope of Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   5.  Discovery of Available Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     5.1.  CONVERSIONS Command  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     5.2.  CONVERSION Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   6.  CONVERT and UID CONVERT Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   7.  CONVERT Conversion Parameters  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     7.1.  Mandatory-to-Implement Conversions and Conversion
           Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     7.2.  Additional Features for Mobile Usage . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   8.  Request/Response Data Items to CONVERT/UID CONVERT Commands  . 14
     8.1.  CONVERTED Untagged Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     8.2.  BODYPARTSTRUCTURE CONVERT Request and Response Item  . . . 14
     8.3.  BINARY.SIZE CONVERT Request and Response Item  . . . . . . 15
     8.4.  AVAILABLECONVERSIONS CONVERT Request and Response Item . . 16
     8.5.  Implementation Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   9.  Status Responses and Response Code Extensions  . . . . . . . . 17
   10. Formal Syntax  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   11. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   12. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     12.1. Registration of unknown-character-replacement Media
           Type Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
   13. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   14. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
   15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29



















Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 2]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


1.  Introduction

   This document defines the CONVERT extension to IMAP4 [RFC3501].
   CONVERT provides adaptation and transcoding of body parts as needed
   by the client.  Conversion (adaptation, transcoding) may be requested
   by the client and performed by the server on a best effort basis or,
   when requested by the client, decided by the server based on the
   server's knowledge of the client capabilities, user or administrator
   preferences, or server settings.

   This extension is primarily intended to be useful to mobile clients.
   It satisfies requirements specified in [OMA-ME-RD].

   A server that supports CONVERT can convert body parts to other
   formats to be viewed (for example) on a mobile device.  The client
   can explicitly request a particular conversion or ask the server to
   select the best available conversion.  When allowed by the client,
   the server determines how to convert based on its own strategy (e.g.,
   based on knowledge of the client as discussed hereafter).  If the
   server knows the characteristics of the device (out of scope for
   CONVERT) or can determine them (for example, using a conversion
   parameter containing device type), converted body parts can also be
   optimized for capabilities of the device (e.g., form factor of
   pictures).  The client is able to control conversions using optional
   conversion (also referred to as "transcoding" in this document)
   parameters.

   This document relies on the registry of conversion parameters
   established by [MEDIAFEAT-REG].  The registry can be used to discover
   the underlying legal values that these parameters can take.
   Additional conversion parameters, such as those defined by [OMA-STI],
   are expected to be registered in the future.

2.  Conventions Used in This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

   In examples, "C:" and "S:" indicate lines sent by the client and
   server, respectively.  If a single "C:" or "S:" label applies to
   multiple lines, then the line breaks between those lines are for
   editorial clarity only and are not part of the actual protocol
   exchange.  The five characters [...] mean that something has been
   elided.






Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 3]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   When describing the general syntax, some definitions are omitted as
   they are defined in [RFC3501].  In particular, the term "session" is
   used in this document as defined in Section 1.2 of [RFC3501].

3.  Relation with Other IMAP Specifications

   Conversion of attachments during streaming is out of scope for the
   CONVERT extension and is described in a separate Lemonade WG document
   [LEM-STREAMING].

   A server claiming compliance with this specification MUST support the
   IMAP Binary specification [RFC3516].

3.1.  CAPABILITY Response

   A server that supports the CONVERT extension MUST return "CONVERT"
   and "BINARY" in the CAPABILITY response or response code.  (Client
   and server authors are reminded that the order of tokens returned in
   the CAPABILITY response or response code is arbitrary.)

      Example: A server that implements CONVERT.

         C: a000 CAPABILITY
         S: * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 CONVERT BINARY [...]
         S: a000 OK CAPABILITY completed

4.  Scope of Conversions

   Conversions only affect what is sent to the client; the original data
   in the message store MUST NOT be altered.  This document does not
   specify how the server performs conversions.

   Note: The requirement that original data be unaltered allows such
   data to remain accessible by other clients, permits replies or
   forwards of the original documents, permits signature verification
   (the converted body parts are not likely to contain any signatures),
   and preserves BODYSTRUCTURE and related information.

5.  Discovery of Available Conversions

5.1.  CONVERSIONS Command

   Arguments: source MIME type
              target MIME type

   Responses: untagged responses: CONVERSION





Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 4]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   Result:    OK - CONVERSIONS command completed
              BAD - unrecognized syntax of an argument, unexpected extra
                    argument, missing argument, etc.

   The CONVERSIONS command is allowed in Authenticated and Selected IMAP
   states.

   The first parameter to the CONVERSIONS command is a source MIME type,
   the second parameter is the target MIME type.  Both parameters are
   partially (e.g., "text/*") or completely ("*") wildcardable.

   Conversions matching the source/target pair and their associated
   conversion parameters are returned in untagged CONVERSION responses.
   If source/target doesn't match any conversion supported by the
   server, no CONVERSION response is returned.

   Examples:

   For conversion information from GIF to JPEG image format (no untagged
   CONVERSION response would be returned if no conversion is possible):

       C: a CONVERSIONS "image/gif" "image/jpeg"
       S: * CONVERSION "image/gif" "image/jpeg" ("pix-y" "pix-x"
           "image-interleave")
       S: a OK CONVERSIONS completed

   For conversion information from GIF image format to anything:

       C: b CONVERSIONS "image/gif" "*"
       S: * CONVERSION "image/gif" "image/jpeg" ("pix-y" "pix-x"
           "image-interleave")
       S: * CONVERSION "image/gif" "image/png" ([...])
       [...]
       S: b OK CONVERSIONS completed

   For conversion of anything to JPEG:

       C: c CONVERSIONS "*" "image/jpeg"
       S: * CONVERSION "image/gif" "image/jpeg" ("pix-y" "pix-x"
           "image-interleave")
       S: * CONVERSION "image/png" "image/jpeg" (...)
       [...]
       S: c OK CONVERSIONS completed

   For conversions from all image formats to all text formats, the
   client can issue the following command:

       C: d CONVERSIONS "image/*" "text/*"



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 5]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


5.2.  CONVERSION Response

   Contents:  source MIME type
              target MIME type
              optional list of supported conversion parameters

   As a result of executing a CONVERSIONS command, the server can return
   one or more CONVERSION responses.  Each CONVERSION response specifies
   which source MIME type can be converted to the target MIME type, and
   also lists supported conversion parameters.

6.  CONVERT and UID CONVERT Commands

   Arguments: sequence set
              conversion parameters
              CONVERT data item names

   Responses: untagged responses: CONVERTED

   Result:    OK - convert completed
              NO - convert error: can't fetch and/or convert that data
              BAD - unrecognized syntax of an argument, unexpected extra
                    argument, missing argument, etc.

   The CONVERT extension defines CONVERT and UID CONVERT commands that
   are used to transcode the media type of a MIME part into another
   media type, and/or the same media type with different encoding
   parameters.  These commands are structured and behave similarly to
   FETCH/UID FETCH commands as extended by [RFC3516]:

   o  A successful CONVERT/UID CONVERT command results in one or more
      untagged CONVERTED responses (one per message).  They are similar
      to the untagged FETCH responses.  Note that a single CONVERT/ UID
      CONVERT command can only perform a single type of conversion as
      defined by the conversion parameters.  A client that needs to
      perform multiple different conversions needs to issue multiple
      CONVERT/UID CONVERT commands.  Such a client MAY pipeline them.

   o  BINARY[...] data item requests conversion of a body part or of the
      whole message according to conversion parameters and requests that
      the converted message/body part be returned as binary.

   o  BINARY.SIZE data item is similar to RFC822.SIZE, but it requests
      size of a converted body part/message.

   o  BODYPARTSTRUCTURE data item is similar to BODYSTRUCTURE FETCH data
      item, but it returns the MIME structure of the converted body
      part.



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 6]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   o  BODY[...HEADER] encoded words in the requested headers are
      converted to the specified charset.  The CHARSET parameter is
      REQUIRED for this conversion.

   o  BODY[...MIME] encoded words in the requested headers are converted
      to the specified charset.  The CHARSET parameter is REQUIRED for
      this conversion.

   o  AVAILABLECONVERSIONS data item requests the list of target MIME
      types the specified body part (or the whole message) can be
      converted to.

   The CONVERT extension also adds one new response code.  See Section 9
   for more details.

   Typically clients will request conversion of leaf body parts.  In
   addition to support of leaf body part conversion, servers MAY offer
   conversion of non-leaf body parts (e.g., conversion from multipart/
   related).

   Instead of specifying the exact target MIME media type the client
   wants to convert to, the client MAY use a special marker NIL (also
   known as "default conversion") to request the server to pick a
   suitable target media type.  This document doesn't describe how
   exactly the server makes such a choice; however, some basic
   guidelines are described in this paragraph.  If the server knows
   characteristics of the device using an in-band (such as device type
   specified in a conversion parameter) or an out-of-band mechanism,
   then it should convert the request body part to a media type the
   device is likely to support and display/play successfully.  Unless
   specifically overridden by a conversion parameter, the server MAY
   also remove any unnecessary detail that exceeds the capabilities of
   the device (e.g., scaling images to just fit on the device's screen).
   In the absence of any in-band or out-of-band mechanism for
   determining device characteristics, the server should convert the
   request body part to the most standard or widely deployed media type
   available in that media category, for example, to convert to text/
   plain, image/jpeg.  In such case, the server should minimize quality
   loss.  Servers are REQUIRED to support "default conversion" requests.
   Server implementations that support conversions to multiple target
   MIME types SHOULD make the default conversion configurable.  Clients
   SHOULD avoid using the default conversion unless they provided a way
   (in-band or out-band) to signal their capabilities to the server, as
   there is no guaranty that the server would guess their capability
   correctly.  Client implementors should consider using
   AVAILABLECONVERSIONS CONVERT data item or CONVERSIONS command instead
   of the default conversion.




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 7]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   CONVERT's command syntax is modeled after the FETCH command syntax in
   [RFC3501], as extended by [RFC3516].  CONVERT data items are
   generally structured as:

       BINARY[section-part]<partial>

       BINARY.SIZE[section-part]

       BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[section-part]

       BODY[HEADER]

       BODY[section-part.HEADER]

       BODY[section-part.MIME]

       AVAILABLECONVERSIONS[section-part]

   The semantics of a partial CONVERT BINARY[...] command is the same as
   for a partial FETCH BODY[...] command, with the exception that the
   <partial> arguments refer to the TRANSCODED and DECODED section data.

   Note that unlike the FETCH command, the CONVERT command never sets
   the \Seen flag on converted messages.  A client wishing to mark a
   message with the \Seen flag would need to issue a STORE command
   (possibly pipelined with the CONVERT request) to do that.

   The UID CONVERT command is different from the CONVERT command in the
   same way as the UID FETCH command is different from the FETCH
   command:

   o  UID CONVERT takes as a parameter a sequence of UIDs instead of a
      sequence of message numbers.

   o  UID CONVERT command MUST result in the UID data item in a
      corresponding CONVERTED response.

   o  An EXPUNGE response MUST NOT be sent while responding to a CONVERT
      command.  This rule is necessary to prevent a loss of
      synchronization of message sequence numbers between client and
      server.  Note that an EXPUNGE response MAY be sent during a UID
      CONVERT command.









Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 8]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   Example: The client fetches body part section 3 in the message with
   the message sequence number of 2 and asks to have that attachment
   converted to pdf format.

     C: a001 CONVERT 2 ("APPLICATION/PDF") BINARY[3]
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "a001") (BINARY[3] {2135}
        <the document in .pdf format>
        )
     S: a001 OK CONVERT COMPLETED

   Example: The client requests for conversion of a text/html body part
   to text/plain and asks for a charset of us-ascii.  The server cannot
   respect the charset conversion request because there are non-us-ascii
   characters in the text/html body part, so it fails the request by
   returning an ERROR phrase in place of the converted data (see
   Section 9).

     C: b001 CONVERT 2 ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii")) BINARY[3]
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (tag "b001") (BINARY[3]
         (ERROR "Source text has non us-ascii" BADPARAMETERS
         "text/html" "text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii")))
     S: b001 NO All conversions failed

   If the client also specified the "unknown-character-replacement"
   conversion parameter (see Section 12.1), the same example can look
   like this:

     C: b001 CONVERT 2 ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"
         "unknown-character-replacement" "?")) BINARY[3]
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "b001") (BINARY[3] {2135}
         <the document in text/plain format with us-ascii
          charset>
        )
     S: b001 OK CONVERT COMPLETED

   The server replaced non-us-ascii characters with a us-ascii character
   such as "?".

   Example: The client first requests the converted size of a text/html
   body part converted to text/plain:

     C: c000 CONVERT 2 ("TEXT/PLAIN" ("CHARSET" "us-ascii"))
         BINARY.SIZE[4]
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "c000") (BINARY.SIZE[4] 3135)
     S: c000 OK CONVERT COMPLETED






Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                     [Page 9]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   Later on, the client requests 1000 bytes from the converted body
   part, starting from byte 2001:

     C: c001 CONVERT 2 ("TEXT/PLAIN" ("CHARSET" "us-ascii"))
         BINARY[4]<2001.1000>
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "c001") (BINARY[4]<2001> {135}
          <bytes 2001 - 2135 of the document in text/plain format>
          )
     S: c001 OK CONVERT COMPLETED

   The server MUST respect the target MIME type and conversion
   parameters specified by the client in the transcoding request.  Note
   that some conversion parameters can restrict what kind of conversion
   is possible, while others can remove some restrictions.

   It is legal for a client to request conversion of a non-leaf body
   part, for example, to request conversion of a multipart/* into a PDF
   document.  However, servers implementing this extension are not
   required to support such conversions.  Servers that support such
   conversions MUST return one or more CONVERSION responses in response
   to a 'CONVERSIONS "multipart/*" "*"' command.  See Section 5.1 for
   more details.

   The client can request header conversions using the BODY[...HEADER]
   CONVERT request, for example

        C: D001 FETCH 2 BODY[HEADER]
        S: * 2 FETCH (BODY[HEADER] {158}
        S: Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2007 20:05:43 +0200
        S: From: Peter <peter@siroe.example.com>
        S: To: Alexey <alexey@siroe.example.com>
        S: Subject: =?KOI8-R?Q?why encode this?=
        S:
        S: )
        S: D001 OK
        C: D002 CONVERT 2 (NIL ("CHARSET" "utf-8")) BODY[HEADER]
        S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "d002") (BODY[HEADER] {157}
        S: Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2007 20:05:43 +0200
        S: From: Peter <peter@siroe.example.com>
        S: To: Alexey <alexey@siroe.example.com>
        S: Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?why encode this?=
        S:
        S: )
        S: D002 OK

   Any such request MUST include the CHARSET parameter.  Upon receipt of
   the request, the server MUST decode any encoded words (as described
   in [RFC2047]) in headers and return them re-encoded in the specified



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 10]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   charset.  (Note that encoded-words might not be needed if the result
   can be represented entirely in US-ASCII, so the server MAY replace
   the resulting encoded-words with their pure US-ASCII representation.)
   If the server can't decode any particular encoded word, for example,
   if the charset or encoding is not recognized, it MUST leave them as
   is.  Servers SHOULD also support decoding of any parameters as
   described in [RFC2231].  Support for RFC 2231 parameters might
   require reformatting of header fields during conversion.  Consider
   the following

        C: D011 FETCH 3 BODY[1.MIME]
        S: * 3 FETCH (BODY[1.MIME] {118}
        S: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8;
        S:  foo*0*=utf-8'fr'tr%c0;
        S:  foo*1*(very)=%03s_m%c0;
        S:  foo*2*=(nasty)%09chant
        S:
        S: D011 OK

   The server should preserve the headers during the conversion as much
   as possible.  In case the characters are split (legally!) between
   fragments of an encoded parameter, the server MUST consolidate the
   parameter fragments, and convert, emit, and re-fragment them as
   necessary in order to keep the line length less than 78.  Comments
   embedded like this SHOULD be preserved during conversion, but clients
   MUST gracefully handle the situation where comments are removed
   entirely.  If the comments are preserved, they MAY be moved after the
   parameter.  For example (continuing the previous example):

        C: D012 CONVERT 3 (NIL) BODY[1.MIME]
        S: * 3 CONVERTED (TAG "D012") (BODY[1.MIME] {109}
        S: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8;
        S:  foo*0*=utf-8'fr'tr%c0%03s_;
        S:  foo*1*=%m%c0%09chant (very)(nasty)
        S:
        S: D012 OK

   No destination MIME type MUST be specified with BODY[HEADER],
   BODY[section.HEADER], or BODY[section.MIME].  That is, BODY[HEADER],
   BODY[section.HEADER], or BODY[section.MIME] can only be used with the
   "default conversion".  When performing these conversions, the server
   SHOULD leave encoded words as encoded words.  A failure to do so may
   alter the semantics of structured headers.








Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 11]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


7.  CONVERT Conversion Parameters

   The registry established by [MEDIAFEAT-REG] defines names of
   conversion parameters that can be used in the CONVERT command.
   Support for some conversion parameters is mandatory, as described in
   Section 7.1.

   According to [MEDIAFEAT-REG], conversion parameter names are case-
   insensitive.

   The following example illustrates how target picture dimensions can
   be specified in a CONVERT request using the PIX-X and PIX-Y
   parameters defined in [DISP-FEATURES].

        C: e001 UID CONVERT 100 ("IMAGE/JPEG" ("PIX-X" "128"
            "PIX-Y" "96")) BINARY[2]
        S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "e001") (UID 100 BINARY[2] ~{4182}
           <this part of a document is a rescaled image in
            JPEG format with width=128, height=96.>
           )
        S: e001 OK UID CONVERT COMPLETED

7.1.  Mandatory-to-Implement Conversions and Conversion Parameters

   A server implementing CONVERT MUST support charset conversions for
   the text/plain MIME type, and MUST support charset conversions from
   iso-8859-1, iso-8859-2, iso-8859-3, iso-8859-4, iso-8859-5,
   iso-8859-6, iso-8859-7, iso-8859-8, and iso-8859-15 to utf-8.

   The server MUST list "text/plain" as an allowed destination
   conversion from "text/plain" MIME type (see Section 5.1).  A command
   'CONVERSIONS "text/plain" "text/plain"' MUST also return "charset"
   and "unknown-character-replacement" (see Section 12.1) as supported
   conversion parameters in the corresponding CONVERSION response.

   IMAP servers implementing the CONVERT extension MUST support
   recognition of the "charset" [CHARSET-REG] parameter for text/plain,
   text/html, text/css, text/csv, text/enriched, and text/xml MIME
   types.  Note, a server implementation is not required to support any
   conversion from the text MIME subtypes specified above, except for
   the mandatory-to-implement conversion described above.  That is, a
   server implementation MUST support the "charset" parameter for text/
   csv, only if it supports any conversion from text/csv.

   The server MUST support decoding of [RFC2047] headers and their
   conversion to UTF-8 as long as the encoded words are in one of the
   supported charsets.




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 12]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   Servers SHOULD offer additional character encoding conversions where
   they make sense, as character conversion libraries are generally
   available on many platforms.

   If the server cannot carry out the charset conversion while
   preserving all the characters (i.e., a source character can't be
   represented in the target charset), and the "unknown-character-
   replacement" conversion parameter is not specified, then the server
   MUST fail the conversion and MUST return the untagged ERROR
   BADPARAMETERS response (see Section 9).  If the value specified in
   the "unknown-character-replacement" conversion itself can't be
   represented in the target charset, then the server MUST also fail the
   conversion and MUST return the untagged ERROR BADPARAMETERS response
   (see Section 9).

7.2.  Additional Features for Mobile Usage

   This section is informative.

   Based on the expected usage of CONVERT in mobile environments, server
   implementors should consider support for the following conversions:

   o  Conversion of HTML and XHTML documents to text/plain in ways that
      preserve at the minimum the document structure and tables.

   o  Image conversions among the types image/gif, image/jpeg, and
      image/png for at least the following parameters:

      *  size limit (i.e., reduce quality)

      *  width ("pix-x" parameter)

      *  height ("pix-y" parameter)

      *  resize directive (crop, stretch, aspect ratio)

      The support for "depth" may also be of interest.

   Audio conversion is also of interest but the relevant formats depend
   significantly on the usage context.











Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 13]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


8.  Request/Response Data Items to CONVERT/UID CONVERT Commands

8.1.  CONVERTED Untagged Response

   Contents:  convert correlator
              CONVERTED return data items

   The CONVERTED response may be sent as a result of a successful,
   partially successful, or unsuccessful CONVERT or UID CONVERT command
   specified in Section 6.

   The CONVERTED response starts with a message number, followed by the
   "CONVERTED" label.  The label is followed by a convert correlator,
   which contains the tag of the command that caused the response to be
   returned.  This can be used by a client to match a CONVERTED response
   against a corresponding CONVERT/UID CONVERT command.

   The convert correlator is followed by a list of one or more CONVERT
   return data items.  If the UID data item is returned, it MUST be
   returned as the first data item in the CONVERTED response.  This
   requirement is to simplify client implementations.  See Section 10
   and the remainder of Section 8 for more details.

8.2.  BODYPARTSTRUCTURE CONVERT Request and Response Item

   BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[section-part]

   The CONVERT extension defines the BODYPARTSTRUCTURE CONVERT data
   item.  Data contained in the BODYPARTSTRUCTURE return data item
   follows the exact syntax specified in the [RFC3501] BODYSTRUCTURE
   data item, but only contains information for the converted part.  All
   information contained in BODYPARTSTRUCTURE pertains to the state of
   the part after it is converted, such as the converted MIME type, sub-
   type, size, or charset.  Note that the client can expect the returned
   MIME type to match the one it requested (as the server is required to
   obey the requested MIME type) and can treat mismatch as an error.

   The returned BODYPARTSTRUCTURE data MUST match the BINARY data
   returned for exactly the same conversion in the same IMAP "session".
   This requirement allows a client to request BODYPARTSTRUCTURE and
   BINARY data in separate commands in the same IMAP session.

   If the client lists a BODYPARTSTRUCTURE data item for a section-part
   before a BINARY data item for the same section-part, then, in the
   CONVERTED response, the server MUST return the BODYPARTSTRUCTURE data
   prior to the corresponding BINARY data.  Also, any BODYSTRUCTURE data





Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 14]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   items MUST be after the UID data item if the UID data item is
   present.  Both requirements are to simplify handling of converted
   data in clients.

   Example:
         C: e002 CONVERT 2 (NIL ("PIX-X" "128" "PIX-Y" "96")) (BINARY[2]
             BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[2])
         S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "e002") (BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[2] ("IMAGE"
             "JPEG" () NIL NIL "8bit" 4182 NIL NIL NIL) BINARY[2]
             ~{4182}
            <this part of a document is a rescaled image in
             JPEG format with width=128, height=96.>
            )
         S: e002 OK CONVERT COMPLETED

8.3.  BINARY.SIZE CONVERT Request and Response Item

   BINARY.SIZE[section-part]

   This item requests the converted size of the section (i.e., the size
   to expect in a response to the corresponding CONVERT BINARY request).
   The returned value MUST be exact and MUST NOT change during a
   duration of an IMAP "session", unless the message is expunged in
   another session (see below).  This allows a client to download a
   converted part in chunks (using "<partial>").  This requirement means
   that in most cases the server needs to perform conversion of the
   requested body part before returning its size.

   If the message is expunged in another session, then the server MAY
   return the value 0 in response to the BINARY.SIZE request item later
   in the same session.

   In order to allow for upgrade of server transcoding components,
   clients MUST NOT assume that repeating a particular body part
   conversion in another IMAP "session" would yield the same result as a
   previous conversion of the very same body part -- any characteristics
   of the converted body part might be different (format, size, etc.).
   In particular, clients MUST NOT cache sizes of converted messages/
   body parts beyond duration of any IMAP "session", or use sizes
   obtained in one connection in another IMAP connection to the same
   server.

   Historical note: Previous experience with IMAP servers that returned
   estimated RFC822.SIZE value shows that this caused interoperability
   problems.  If the server returns a value that is smaller than the
   actual size, this will result in data truncation if <partial>





Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 15]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   download is used.  If the server returns a value that is bigger than
   the actual size, this might mislead a client to believe that it
   doesn't have enough storage to download a body part.

   Note for client implementors: client authors are cautioned that this
   might be an expensive operation for some server implementations.
   Requesting BINARY.SIZE for a large number of converted body parts or
   for multiple conversions of the same body part can result in slow
   performance and/or excessive server load and is discouraged.  Client
   implementors should consider implementation approaches that limit
   this request to only the most necessary cases and are encouraged to
   test the performance impact of BINARY.SIZE with multiple server
   implementations.

8.4.  AVAILABLECONVERSIONS CONVERT Request and Response Item

   AVAILABLECONVERSIONS[section-part] allows the client to request the
   list of target MIME types the specified body part of a message or the
   whole message can be converted to.  This data item is only useful
   when the default conversion (see Section 6) is requested.

   This data item MUST return a list of target MIME types that is a
   subset of the list returned by the CONVERSIONS command for the same
   source and target MIME type pairs.  If specific conversion is
   requested, it MUST return the target MIME type as requested in the
   CONVERT command, or the ERROR phrase.

   For both specific or default conversion requests, if conversion
   parameters are specified, then the server must take them into
   consideration when generating the list of target MIME types.  For
   example, if one or more of the conversion parameters doesn't apply to
   a potential target MIME type, then such MIME type MUST be omitted
   from the resulting list.  If the server only had a single target MIME
   type candidate and it was discarded due to the list of conversion
   parameters, then the server SHOULD return the ERROR phrase instead of
   the empty list of the target MIME types.

   The AVAILABLECONVERSIONS request SHOULD be processed quickly if
   specified by itself.  Note that if a MIME type is returned in
   response to the AVAILABLECONVERSIONS, there is no guaranty that the
   corresponding BINARY/BINARY.SIZE/BODYPARTSTRUCTURE CONVERT request
   will not fail.

      Example:
            C: f001 CONVERT 2 (NIL) (AVAILABLECONVERSIONS[2])
            S: * 2 CONVERTED (TAG "f001") (AVAILABLECONVERSIONS[2]
                        (("IMAGE/JPEG" "application/PostScript"))
            S: f001 OK CONVERT COMPLETED



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 16]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


8.5.  Implementation Considerations

   Note that this section is normative.

   Servers MAY refuse to execute conversion requests that convert
   multiple messages and/or body parts at once, e.g., a conversion
   request that specifies multiple message numbers/UIDs.  If the server
   refuses a conversion because the request lists too many messages, the
   server MUST return the MAXCONVERTMESSAGES response code (see
   Section 9).  For example:

       C: g001 CONVERT 1:* ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"))
           BINARY[3]
       S: g001 NO [MAXCONVERTMESSAGES 1]

   If the server refuses a conversion because the request lists too many
   body parts, the server MUST return the MAXCONVERTPARTS response code
   (see Section 9).  For example:

      C: h001 CONVERT 1 ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"))
          (BINARY[1] BINARY[2])

      S: g001 NO [MAXCONVERTPARTS 1] You can only request 1 body part at
          any given time

   Note for server implementors: In order to improve performance,
   implementations SHOULD cache converted body parts.  For example, the
   server may perform a body part conversion when it receives the first
   BINARY.SIZE[...], BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[...], or BINARY[...] request and
   cache it until the client requests conversion/download of another
   body part, a different conversion of the same body part, or until the
   mailbox is closed.  In order to mitigate denial-of-service attacks
   from misbehaving or badly-written clients, a server SHOULD limit the
   number of converted body parts it can cache.  Servers SHOULD be able
   to cache at least 2 conversions at any given time.

9.  Status Responses and Response Code Extensions

   A syntactically invalid MIME media type SHOULD generate a BAD tagged
   response from the server.  An unrecognized MIME media type generates
   a NO tagged response.

   Some transcodings may require parameters.  If a transcoding request
   with no parameters is sent for a format which requires parameters,
   the server will return an ERROR MISSINGPARAMETERS phrase in place of
   the data associated with the data items requested.  This is analogous
   to the NIL response in FETCH, but with structured data associated
   with the failure.



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 17]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   If the server is unable to perform the requested conversion because a
   resource is temporary unavailable (e.g., lack of disk space,
   temporary internal error, transcoding service down), then the server
   MUST return a tagged NO response that SHOULD contain the TEMPFAIL
   response code (see below), or an ERROR TEMPFAIL phrase.

   If the requested conversion cannot be performed because of a
   permanent error, for example, if a proprietary document format has no
   existing transcoding implementation, the server MUST return a
   CONVERTED response containing a ERROR BADPARAMETERS or ERROR
   MISSINGPARAMETERS phrase.

   The server MAY choose to return one ERROR phrase for a single
   conversion if several related data items are requested.  For
   instance:

     C: b002 CONVERT 2 ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"))
         (BINARY[3] BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[3])
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (tag "b002") (BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[3]
         (ERROR "Source text has non us-ascii" BADPARAMETERS
         "text/html" "text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii")))
     S: b002 NO All conversions failed

   If at least one conversion succeeds, the server MUST return an OK
   response.  If all conversions fail, the server MAY return OK or NO.
   For instance:

     C: b002 CONVERT 2 ("text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"))
         (BINARY[3] BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[3] BINARY[4]
         BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[4])
     S: * 2 CONVERTED (tag "b002") (BODYPARTSTRUCTURE[3]
         (ERROR "Source text has non us-ascii" BADPARAMETERS
         "text/html" "text/plain" ("charset" "us-ascii"))
         BODYSTRUCTURE[4] ("TEXT" "PLAIN" (CHARSET US-ASCII)
         NIL NIL "8bit" 4182 NIL NIL NIL) BINARY[4] {4182}
           <body in text plain>
        )
     S: b002 OK Some conversions failed

   In general, the client can tell from the BODYPARTSTRUCTURE response
   whether or not its request was honored exactly, but may not know the
   reasons why.

   This document defines the following response codes that can be
   returned in the tagged NO response code.

   TEMPFAIL -  The transcoding request failed temporarily.  It might
         succeed later, so the client MAY retry.



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 18]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   MAXCONVERTMESSAGES <number> -  The server is unable or unwilling to
         convert more than <number> messages in any given CONVERT/UID
         CONVERT request.

   MAXCONVERTPARTS <number> -  The server is unable or unwilling to
         convert more than <number> body parts of a message at once in
         any given CONVERT/UID CONVERT request.

   The word ERROR is always followed by an informal human-readable
   descriptive text, which is followed by the convert-error-code.  The
   convert-error-code MUST be one of the following:

   TEMPFAIL mm -  The transcoding request failed temporarily.  It might
         succeed later, so the client MAY retry.  The client SHOULD wait
         for at least mm minutes before retrying.

   BADPARAMETERS  from-concrete-mime-type to-mime-type
   "(" transcoding-params ")" -
         The listed parameters were not understood, not valid for the
         source/destination MIME type pair, had invalid values or could
         not be honored for another reason noted in the human-readable
         text that was specified after the ERROR label.  The
         transcoding-params can be omitted, in which case, it means that
         the conversion from the from-concrete-mime-type to the to-mime-
         type is not possible.  If the from-concrete-mime-type is NIL,
         this means that the specified body part doesn't exist.  All
         unrecognized or irrelevant parameters MUST be listed in the
         transcoding-params.  It is not legal behavior to ignore
         irrelevant parameters.

         Note that if the client requested the "default conversion" (see
         Section 6), the to-mime-type contains the destination MIME type
         chosen by the server.

   MISSINGPARAMETERS  from-concrete-mime-type to-mime-type
   "(" transcoding-params ")" -
         The listed parameters are required for conversion of the
         specified source MIME type to the destination MIME type, but
         were not seen in the request.  Note that if the client
         requested the "default conversion" (see Section 6), the to-
         mime-type contains the destination MIME type chosen by the
         server.









Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 19]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


      Examples:

         C: b002 CONVERT 2 ("APPLICATION/PDF") BINARY[3]
         S: b002 NO [TEMPFAIL] All conversions failed

         C: b003 CONVERT 2 ("TEXT/PLAIN") BINARY[3]
         S: * 2 CONVERTED (tag "b003") (BINARY[3]
             (ERROR "CHARSET must be specified for text conversions"
             MISSINGPARAMETERS (CHARSET)))
         S: b003 NO All conversions failed

         C: b005 CONVERT 2 ("TEXT/PLAIN" (CHARSET "US-ASCII"
                   UNKNOWN-CHARACTER-REPLACEMENT "<badchar>")) BINARY[3]
         S: * 2 CONVERTED (tag "b005") (BINARY[3]
             (ERROR "UNKNOWN-CHARACTER-REPLACEMENT limited to 4
             bytes" BADPARAMETERS (UNKNOWN-CHARACTER-REPLACEMENT
             "<badchar>")))
         S: b005 NO All conversions failed

10.  Formal Syntax

   The following syntax specification uses the augmented Backus-Naur
   Form (ABNF) notation as used in [ABNF], and incorporates by reference
   the core rules defined in that document.

   This syntax augments the grammar specified in [RFC3501] and
   [RFC3516].  Non-terminals not defined in this document can be found
   in [RFC3501], [RFC3516], [IMAPABNF], [MIME-MTSRP], and
   [MEDIAFEAT-REG].

       command-select  =/ convert

       uid             =/ "UID" SP convert
                     ; Unique identifiers used instead of message
                     ; sequence numbers

       convert         = "CONVERT" SP sequence-set SP convert-params SP
                         ( convert-att /
                           "(" convert-att *(SP convert-att) ")" )

       convert-att     = "UID" /
                         "BODYPARTSTRUCTURE" section-convert /
                         "BINARY" section-convert [partial] /
                         "BINARY.SIZE" section-convert /
                         "BODY[HEADER]" /
                         "BODY[" section-part ".HEADER]" /
                         "BODY[" section-part ".MIME]" /
                         "AVAILABLECONVERSIONS" section-convert



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 20]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


                     ; <partial> is defined in [RFC3516].
                     ; <section-part> is defined in [RFC3501].

       convert-params = "(" (quoted-to-mime-type / default-conversion)
                        [SP "(" transcoding-params ")"] ")"

       quoted-to-mime-type = DQUOTE to-mime-type DQUOTE

       transcoding-params  = transcoding-param
                             *(SP transcoding-param)

       transcoding-param-names  = transcoding-param-name
                             *(SP transcoding-param-name)

       transcoding-param  = transcoding-param-name SP
                            transcoding-param-value

       transcoding-param-name = astring
                ; <transcod-param-name-nq> represented as a quoted,
                ; literal or atom.  Note that
                ; <transcod-param-name-nq> allows for "%", which is
                ; not allowed in atoms.  Such values must be
                ; represented as quoted or literal.

       transcod-param-name-nq = Feature-tag
                ; <Feature-tag> is defined in [MEDIAFEAT-REG].

       transcoding-param-value = astring

       default-conversion = "NIL"

       message-data   =/ nz-number SP "CONVERTED" SP convert-correlator
                          SP convert-msg-attrs

       convert-correlator = "(" "TAG" SP tag-string ")"

       tag-string = string
                     ; tag of the command that caused
                     ; the CONVERTED response, sent as
                     ; a string.

       convert-msg-attrs = "(" convert-msg-att *(SP convert-msg-att) ")"
                     ; "UID" MUST be the first data item, if present.

       convert-msg-att = msg-att-semistat / msg-att-conv-static

       msg-att-conv-static  = "UID" SP uniqueid
                     ; MUST NOT change for a message



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 21]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


       msg-att-semistat =
                    ( "BINARY" section-convert ["<" number ">"] SP
                       (nstring / literal8 / converterror-phrase) ) /
                    ( "BINARY.SIZE" section-convert SP
                       (number / converterror-phrase) ) /
                    ( "BODYPARTSTRUCTURE" section-convert SP
                       (body / converterror-phrase) ) /
                    ( "AVAILABLECONVERSIONS" section-convert SP
                       (mimetype-list / converterror-phrase) )
                     ; MUST NOT change during an IMAP "session",
                     ; but not necessarily static in the long term.

       section-convert = section-binary
                     ; <section-binary> is defined in [RFC3516].
                     ;
                     ; Note that unlike [RFC3516], conversion
                     ; of a top level multipart/* is allowed.

       resp-text-code =/ "TEMPFAIL" /
                         "MAXCONVERTMESSAGES" SP nz-number /
                         "MAXCONVERTPARTS" SP nz-number
           ; <resp-text-code> is defined in [RFC3501].

       mimetype-and-params = quoted-to-mime-type
           [SP "(" transcoding-params ")"]
           ; always includes a specific MIME type

       mimetype-list = "(" "(" [quoted-to-mime-type
                                *(SP quoted-to-mime-type)] ")" ")"
           ; Unordered list of MIME types.  It can be empty.
           ;
           ; Two levels of parenthesis is needed to distinguish this
           ; data from <converterror-phrase>.

       converterror-phrase = "(" "ERROR" SP
            convert-err-descript SP convert-error-code ")"

       convert-error-code = "TEMPFAIL" [SP nz-number]
                          / bad-params
                          / missing-params

       convert-err-descript = string
            ; Human-readable text explaining the conversion error.
                    ; The default charset is US-ASCII, unless
                    ; the LANGUAGE command [IMAP-I18N] is called, when
                    ; the charset changes to UTF-8.

       quoted-from-mime-type = DQUOTE from-concrete-mime-type DQUOTE



Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 22]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


       bad-params = "BADPARAMETERS"
              1*(SP (quoted-from-mime-type / nil)
                 SP mimetype-and-params)
           ; nil is only returned when the body part doesn't exist.

       missing-params = "MISSINGPARAMETERS"
              1*(SP quoted-from-mime-type SP
                    mimetype-and-missing-params)

       mimetype-and-missing-params = quoted-to-mime-type
           "(" transcoding-param-names ")"
           ; always includes a specific MIME type

       concrete-mime-type = type-name "/" subtype-name
                       ; i.e., "type/subtype".
                       ; type-name and subtype-name
                       ; are defined in [MIME-MTSRP].

       from-concrete-mime-type = concrete-mime-type

       to-mime-type = concrete-mime-type

       command-auth =/ conversions-cmd

       conversions-cmd = "CONVERSIONS" SP from-mime-type-req SP
                         to-mime-type-req

       from-mime-type-req = astring
         ; "mime-type-req" represented as IMAP <atom>,
         ; <quoted> or <literal>

       to-mime-type-req = astring
         ; <mime-type-req> represented as IMAP <atom>,
         ; <quoted> or <literal>.
         ; Note that <mime-type-req> allows for "*",
         ; which is not allowed in <atom>.  Such values must
         ; be represented as <quoted> or <literal>.

       any-mime-type  = "*"

       mime-type-req = any-mime-type /
                       (type-name "/" any-mime-type) /
                       concrete-mime-type
         ; '*', 'type/*' or 'type/subtype'.
         ; type-name is defined in [MIME-MTSRP].

       response-payload =/ conversion-data




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 23]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


       conversion-data = "CONVERSION" SP quoted-from-mime-type SP
                         quoted-to-mime-type
                         [SP "(" transcoding-param-name
                          *(SP transcoding-param-name) ")"]

11.  Manageability Considerations

   The monitoring of CONVERT operation is similar to monitoring of the
   IMAP FETCH operation.

   At the time of writing this document, there is no standard IMAP MIB
   defined.  Similarly, a standard MIB for monitoring CONVERT operations
   and their failures does not exist.  However, the authors believe that
   in the absence of such a MIB, server implementations SHOULD provide
   operators with tools to report the following information:

   o  which conversions (source and target MIME types and possibly
      conversion parameters used) are invoked more frequently and how
      long they take,

   o  information about conversion errors and which error condition
      caused them (see Section 9), and

   o  information about users which invoke conversion operation.

   This information can help operators to detect client abuse of this
   extension and scalability issues that might arise from its use.

   Standardizing these tools may be the subject of future work.

12.  IANA Considerations

   IMAP4 capabilities are registered by publishing a Standards Track or
   IESG-approved Experimental RFC.  This document defines the CONVERT
   IMAP capability.  IANA has added this extension to the IANA IMAP
   Capability registry.

   IANA has performed registrations as defined in the following
   subsections.












Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 24]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


12.1.  Registration of unknown-character-replacement Media Type
       Parameter

   IANA has added the following registration to the registry established
   by RFC 2506.

   To: "Media feature tags mailing list"
       <media-feature-tags@apps.ietf.org>

   Subject: Registration of media feature tag
            unknown-character-replacement

   Media feature tag name:
      unknown-character-replacement

   ASN.1 identifier associated with feature tag:
      1.3.6.1.8.1.33

   Summary of the media feature indicated by this feature tag:
       Allows servers that can perform charset conversion for text/plain
       text/html, text/css, text/csv, text/enriched, and text/xml MIME
       types to replace characters not supported by the target charset
       with a fixed string, such as "?".
       This feature tag is also applicable to other conversions
       to text, e.g., conversion of images using OCR (optical
       character recognition).

   Values appropriate for use with this feature tag:
       The feature tag contains a UTF-8 string used to replace any
       characters from the source media type that can't be
       represented in the target media type.

   The feature tag is intended primarily for use in the following
   applications, protocols, services, or negotiation mechanisms:
       IMAP CONVERT extension [RFC5259]

   Examples of typical use:
      C: b001 CONVERT 2 BINARY[3 ("text/plain" ("charset"
          "us-ascii" "unknown-character-replacement" "?"))]

   Related standards or documents:
      [RFC5259]
      [CHARSET-REG]

   Considerations particular to use in individual applications,
   protocols, services, or negotiation mechanisms:
      None




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 25]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   Interoperability considerations: None

   Security considerations: None

   Additional information:
      This media feature only make sense for MIME types that
      also support the "charset" media type parameter
      [CHARSET-REG].

   Name(s) & email address(es) of person(s) to contact for further
   information:
      Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>

   Intended usage:
      COMMON

   Author/Change controller:
      IETF

   Requested IANA publication delay:
      None

   Other information:
      None

13.  Security Considerations

   It is to be noted that some conversions may present security threats
   (e.g., converting a document to a damaging executable, exploiting a
   buffer overflow in a media codec/parser, or a denial-of-service
   attack against a client or a server such as requesting an image be
   scaled to extremely large dimensions).  Server SHOULD refuse to
   execute CPU-expensive conversions.  Servers should avoid dangerous
   conversions if possible.  Whenever possible, servers should perform
   verification of the converted attachments before returning them to
   the client.  Clients should be careful when requesting conversions or
   processing transformed attachments.  Clients SHOULD use mutual Simple
   Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) authentication and the SASL/
   TLS integrity layer, to make sure they are talking to trusted
   servers.

   When the client requests a server-side conversion of a signed body
   part (e.g., a part inside multipart/signed), there is no way for the
   client to verify that the converted content is authentic.  A client
   not trusting the server to perform conversion of a signed body part
   can download the signed object, verify the signature, and perform the
   conversion itself.




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 26]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


   A client can create a carefully crafted bad message with the APPEND
   command followed by the CONVERT command to attack the server.  If the
   server's conversion function or library has a security problem (such
   as vulnerability to a buffer overflow), this could result in
   privilege escalation or denial of service.  In order to mitigate such
   attacks, servers SHOULD log the client authentication identity on
   APPEND and/or CONVERT operations in order to facilitate tracking of
   abusive clients.  Also server implementors SHOULD isolate the
   conversion function or library from the privileged mailstore, perhaps
   by running it within a distinct process.

   Deployments in which the actual transcoding is done outside the IMAP
   server in a separate server are recommended to keep the servers in
   the same trusted domain (e.g., subnet).

14.  Acknowledgments

   Stephane H. Maes and Ray Cromwell from Oracle edited several earlier
   versions of this document.  Their contribution is gratefully
   acknowledged.

   The authors want to specifically acknowledge the excellent criticism
   and comments received from Randall Gellens (Qualcomm), Arnt
   Gulbrandsen (Oryx), Zoltan Ordogh (Nokia), Ben Last (Emccsoft), Dan
   Karp (Zimbra), Pete Resnick (Qualcomm), Chris Newman (Sun), Ted
   Hardie (Qualcomm), Larry Masinter (Adobe), Philip Guenther
   (Sendmail), Greg Vaudreuil (Alcatel-Lucent), David Harrington
   (Comcast), Dave Cridland (Isode), Pasi Eronen (Nokia), Magnus
   Westerlund (Ericsson), and Jari Arkko (Ericsson), which improved the
   quality of this specification considerably.

   The authors would also like to specially thank Dave Cridland for the
   MEDIACAPS command proposal and Dan Karp for the CONVERSIONS command
   proposal.

   The authors also want to thank all who have contributed key insight
   and extensively reviewed and discussed the concepts of CONVERT and
   its predecessor P-IMAP.  In particular, this includes the authors of
   the LCONVERT document: Rafiul Ahad (Oracle Corporation), Eugene Chiu
   (Oracle Corporation), Ray Cromwell (Oracle Corporation), Jia-der Day
   (Oracle Corporation), Vi Ha (Oracle Corporation), Wook-Hyun Jeong
   (Samsung Electronics Co. LTF), Chang Kuang (Oracle Corporation),
   Rodrigo Lima (Oracle Corporation), Stephane H. Maes (Oracle
   Corporation), Gustaf Rosell (Sony Ericsson), Jean Sini (Symbol
   Technologies), Sung-Mu Son (LG Electronics), Fan Xiaohui (China
   Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC)), and Zhao Lijun (China
   Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC)).




Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 27]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


15.  References

15.1.  Normative References

   [ABNF]           Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
                    Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
                    January 2008.

   [CHARSET-REG]    Hoffman, P., "Registration of Charset and Languages
                    Media Features Tags", RFC 2987, November 2000.

   [IMAPABNF]       Melnikov, A. and C. Daboo, "Collected Extensions to
                    IMAP4 ABNF", RFC 4466, April 2006.

   [MEDIAFEAT-REG]  Holtman, K., Mutz, A., and T. Hardie, "Media Feature
                    Tag Registration Procedure", BCP 31, RFC 2506,
                    March 1999.

   [MIME-MTSRP]     Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications
                    and Registration Procedures", BCP 13, RFC 4288,
                    December 2005.

   [RFC2047]        Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
                    Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions
                    for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047, November 1996.

   [RFC2119]        Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
                    Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2231]        Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and
                    Encoded Word Extensions:
                    Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations",
                    RFC 2231, November 1997.

   [RFC3501]        Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL -
                    VERSION 4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.

   [RFC3516]        Nerenberg, L., "IMAP4 Binary Content Extension",
                    RFC 3516, April 2003.












Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 28]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


15.2.  Informative References

   [DISP-FEATURES]  Masinter, L., Wing, D., Mutz, A., and K. Holtman,
                    "Media Features for Display, Print, and Fax",
                    RFC 2534, March 1999.

   [IMAP-I18N]      Newman, C., Gulbrandsen, A., and A. Melnikov,
                    "Internet Message Access Protocol
                    Internationalization", RFC 5255, June 2008.

   [LEM-STREAMING]  Cook, N., "Streaming Internet Messaging
                    Attachments", Work in Progress, June 2008.

   [OMA-ME-RD]      OMA, "Open Mobile Alliance Mobile Email Requirement
                    Document", OMA 55.919 3.0.0, December 2007.

   [OMA-STI]        OMA, "Open Mobile Alliance, Standard Transcoding
                    Interface Specification", OMA OMA-STI-V1_0,
                    December 2005.

Authors' Addresses

   Alexey Melnikov (editor)
   Isode Ltd
   5 Castle Business Village
   36 Station Road
   Hampton, Middlesex  TW12 2BX
   UK

   EMail: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com


   Peter Coates (editor)
   Sun Microsystems
   185 Falcon Drive
   Whitehorse, YT  Y1A 6T2
   Canada

   EMail: peter.coates@Sun.COM












Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 29]
^L
RFC 5259                 IMAP CONVERT extension                July 2008


Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).

   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
   contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
   retain all their rights.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
   THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
   OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
   THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.












Melnikov & Coates           Standards Track                    [Page 30]
^L