lynx-dev lynx -dump wraps lines?

[John Hawkinson]

I spent some time confused today while trying to verify
a PGP signature of a document I downloaded with lynx,
wherein the signature verification kept failing.

I had downloaded the file with "lynx -dump", which I presumed
was adequate to preserve the file, given that its content-type
was text/plain.

In actuality, though, it turned out that "lynx -dump" wrapped
2 long lines in the file, causing PGP signature verification to fail.

It would appear that the HTTP spec defers to RFC1521 (MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: mechanisms for
Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies) on
this topic, and I cannot find a clear statement in RFC1521 about
whether line wrapping is allowed for "text/plain" URLs.

In this case, the wrapping was certainly troublesome and it would seem
to me that lynx -dump shouldn't be enforcing any sort of terminal-based
restrictions on its output, such as line width.

The URL in question, for what it is worth, is
"http://ca.mit.edu/mitca/sig.asc";.

Is there a clear answer here?

Thanks.

--jhawk