Maximum characters in an email address?

[OneRob]

Does anyone know if there is a maximum number of characters allowed for
an entire email address??
(e.g. IsThisAnAcceptabl...@IWouldLikeToKnowPlease.com)

Is there a governing agency out there who keeps track of all email
addressed to ensure their uniqueness?

The reason I'm asking is because I'm creating a database and one of the
fields is Email Address, so I would like to use the smallest data
length possible.

Thanks!

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[Thor Kottelin]

OneRob wrote:
>
> Does anyone know if there is a maximum number of characters allowed for
> an entire email address??
> (e.g. IsThisAnAcceptabl...@IWouldLikeToKnowPlease.com)

YesItIs@YouAreWelcome.

This is from RFC 821:

"There are several objects that have required minimum maximum
sizes. That is, every implementation must be able to receive
objects of at least these sizes, but must not send objects
larger than these sizes.

****************************************************
* *
* TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT POSSIBLE, IMPLEMENTATION *
* TECHNIQUES WHICH IMPOSE NO LIMITS ON THE LENGTH *
* OF THESE OBJECTS SHOULD BE USED. *
* *
****************************************************

user

The maximum total length of a user name is 64 characters.

domain

The maximum total length of a domain name or number is 64
characters."

> Is there a governing agency out there who keeps track of all email
> addressed to ensure their uniqueness?

No. Domain name uniqueness is handled hierarchically by the parent
domains' owners, and mail address uniqueness by the domain's postmaster.

Thor

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[Sam Roberts]

Read RFC822, which can be found at:

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc822.txt

As far as I know, there is NO limit to length of the mailbox part,
the name to the left of the @ sign imposed by RFC822, you could check
RFC821 to see if SMTP imposes a limit. The IETF tries to build protocols
without arbitrary limits.

And there is no governing agency for mail addresses.

Sam

Previously, OneRob wrote in comp.mail.misc:

> Does anyone know if there is a maximum number of characters allowed for
> an entire email address??
> (e.g. IsThisAnAcceptabl...@IWouldLikeToKnowPlease.com)
>

> Is there a governing agency out there who keeps track of all email
> addressed to ensure their uniqueness?
>

> The reason I'm asking is because I'm creating a database and one of the
> fields is Email Address, so I would like to use the smallest data
> length possible.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> * Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
> The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
>
>

--
--
Sam Roberts (s...@cogent.ca), Cogent Real-Time Systems (www.cogent.ca)
"News is very popular among its readers." - RFC 977 (NNTP)