[development] _drupal_wrap_mail_line()

[Earl Miles]

On 10/8/2010 11:47 AM, nan wich wrote:
> @Gerhard: 80 lines was how long a punch card was. What a ridiculous
> reason to use 80 any more. Are you even old enough to have ever seen a
> punch card?  I almost forgot, the original IBM System/3 had punch cards

Yes, Nancy, there are actually a few adults on this list. Though I doubt
many of us are old enough to have actually USED a punch card, since
people who did work on punch cards should be pretty close to retirement
age by now.

80 characters was the common width of monitors, which descended from
punch cards, but is also pretty close to the 72 character width of the
common typewriter (pica, if I remember right) with standard margins. RFC
2822 imposed the limit (as a SHOULD not MUST) because many terminals
failed to wrap on their own, and terminals often had 80 CPL in order to
be standard. Though many terminals also had 132 or, if you were
unfortunate enough to use a VIC-20 (and maybe a PET, I forget) you could
get 40 CPL.

Also, RFC2822 is still in effect; if an email message is in text/plain,
it is polite to go ahead and wrap at 78 per the spec. If your message is
text/html then wrapping is pointless.