>" | "@" | "," | ";" | ":" | "\" | <"> | "/" | "[" | "]" | "?" | "=" | "{" | "}" | SP | HT quoted-string = ( <"> *(qdtext | quoted-pair ) <"> ) qdtext = > quoted-pair = "\" CHAR parameter = attribute "=" value attribute = token value = token | quoted-string Each header is represented by a list of key/value pairs. The value for a simple token (not part of a parameter) is None. Syntactically incorrect headers will not necessarily be parsed as you would want. This is easier to describe with some examples: >>> split_header_words(['foo="bar"; port="80,81"; discard, bar=baz']) [[('foo', 'bar'), ('port', '80,81'), ('discard', None)], [('bar', 'baz')]] >>> split_header_words(['text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"']) [[('text/html', None), ('charset', 'iso-8859-1')]] >>> split_header_words([r'Basic realm="\"foo\bar\""']) [[('Basic', None), ('realm', '"foobar"')]] r