UTF-7

E123130

UTF-7 is an obsolete, 7-bit Unicode text encoding designed primarily for safe transmission of Unicode data over email systems that were not fully 8-bit clean.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
7-bit Unicode Transformation Format 1
UTF-7 canonical 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Unicode transformation format
character encoding
obsolete technology
bitWidth 7-bit
category Unicode encodings
classification legacy encoding
compatibleWith 7-bit transport channels
definedFor Unicode 1.1
deprecatedIn RFC 3490
RFC 3629
RFC 3986
designedFor MIME email systems not fully 8-bit clean
safe transmission of Unicode over 7-bit email systems
discouragedFor modern web applications
new protocols
encodesDirectly subset of ASCII characters
encodesIndirectly non-ASCII Unicode characters
encodingType variable-length encoding
fullName UTF-7 self-linksurface differs
surface form: 7-bit Unicode Transformation Format
hasMIMECharsetName UTF-7
introducedInStandard RFC 1642
notCompatibleWith strict 8-bit clean assumptions
primaryUseCase email message bodies
newsgroup postings
publicationYear 1994
recommendedAlternative UTF-8 with MIME base64
UTF-8 with MIME quoted-printable
relatedTo Base64
UTF-16
UTF-8
replacedBy UTF-16
UTF-32
UTF-8
securityIssue can be used for content filter evasion
can cause cross-site scripting (XSS) issues in web contexts
securityProperty considered insecure
shiftSequenceEnd -
shiftSequenceStart +
standardizedBy Internet Engineering Task Force
surface form: IETF
status obsolete
supports Unicode
transportGoal avoid use of 8-bit or control characters in email
usageToday rare
uses ASCII as base encoding
modified Base64-like encoding for non-ASCII characters
usesShiftCharacter +

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

UTF-32 isAlternativeTo UTF-7
UTF-7 fullName UTF-7 self-linksurface differs
this entity surface form: 7-bit Unicode Transformation Format