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There is some value in not unfolding long lines by default.
 FWIW, the email package also retains the line breaks for
such multi-line headers. The advantage to retaining this is
that message input/output can be idempotent (i.e. you get
the same thing in as you get out). This can be useful when
using the message to generate a hash value, and for other
user-friendly reasons.
That being said, there is also some use in providing a way
to return the unfolded line. I don't see a lot of benefit
in adding such a feature to the rfc822 module, but I could
see adding it to the email package. Specifically, I would
propose to add it to the email.Header.Header class, either
as a separate method (e.g. Header.unfold()) or as a default
argument to the Header.encode() method (e.g.
Header.encode(self, unfold=0)).
If we did the latter, then I'd change Header.__str__() to
call .encode(unfold=1).
Assigning to Ben to get his feedback. Ben, feel free to
comment and re-assign this bug to me.