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An electronic mail message has a specific structure to it that's common across every type of computer system.(4) A sample would be:
From bush@hq.mil Sat May 25 17:06:01 1991 Received: from hq.mil by house.gov with SMTP id AA21901 (4.1/SMI for dan@house.gov); Sat, 25 May 91 17:05:56 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 May 91 17:05:56 -0400 From: The President <bush@hq.mil> Message-Id: <9105252105.AA06631@hq.mil> To: dan@senate.gov Subject: Meeting Hi Dan .. we have a meeting at 9:30 a.m. with the Joint Chiefs. Please don't oversleep this time.
The first line, with `From' and the two lines for `Received:' are usually not very interesting. They give the "real" address that the mail is coming from (as opposed to the address you should reply to, which may look much different), and what places the mail went through to get to you. Over the Internet, there is always at least one `Received:' header and usually no more than four or five. When a message is sent using UUCP, one `Received:' header is added for each system that the mail passes through. This can often result in more than a dozen `Received:' headers. While they help with dissecting problems in mail delivery, odds are the average user will never want to see them. Most mail programs will filter out this kind of "cruft" in a header. invisible.xbm
The `Date:' header contains the date and time the message was sent. Likewise, the "good" address (as opposed to "real" address) is laid out in the `From:' header. Sometimes it won't include the full name of the person (in this case `The President'), and may look different, but it should always contain an email address of some form.
The `Message-ID:' of a message is intended mainly for tracing mail routing, and is rarely of interest to normal users. Every `Message-ID:' is guaranteed to be unique.
`To:' lists the email address (or addresses) of the recipients of the message. There may be a `Cc:' header, listing additional addresses. Finally, a brief subject for the message goes in the `Subject:' header.
The exact order of a message's headers may vary from system to system, but it will always include these fundamental headers that are vital to proper delivery.
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