Hi there. Please read my comments below:
On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 10:49:51AM -0400, Amelia A Lewis wrote:
On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 03:53:39PM +0300, Tom Alsberg wrote:
That's possible. But I'd prefer it if when COPYing a message, it would just copy the "From " line verbatim as well, and not get into this trouble, even though I see now that the content should normally be the same (leave those semantics to the MTA...).
Okay, so this is the IMAP COPY command, right?
Yes...
Why are you putting mbox "From " lines into my maildir?
Uhmm, I am not. It should of course only copy it together with the "From " line if copied to an mbox...
If dovecot is the source, how does it know what format the target mailbox is in?
Well, it obviously knows what format the target mailbox is in already, as it needs it to be able to write to it properly anyway...
Should dovecot instances communicate with one another?
I'm not sure I understand you.
Well, from what I've seen in the code, in no occassion does the COPY command work between processes. When COPYing a message, it just reads the message (from an istream or something like that, don't remember exactly right now), and writes the message to the target mailbox (in the same process - called from within the same routine), and in the case of mbox, the writing routine first calls mbox_from_create to write the "From " line.
It could, when COPYing from an mbox to and mbox, copy the message together with the "From " line to the target mbox, instead of calling mbox_from_create to write a new "From " line and then copying the rest.
Given that every user can only access his mailboxes, and there is one process per connected user, I fail to see how any interaction between dovecot instances is necessary.
Is this only for mailboxes that a single dovecot instance is in charge of?
What do you mean by a "dovecot instance"? Do you mean one server, or one forked process, or what?
So the move, although issued as IMAP, should behave differently for a move between two mailboxes on one server than it does between mailboxes on two servers?
Can IMAP move messages between servers? (Can IMAP servers communicate amongst them?) I don't think that I understand...
As far as I understood IMAP (from the RFC, docs, etc.), within one session, it only operates on a defined mailbox/folder space (the folders accessible to the user after he's authenticated). There's no sending of messages through IMAP (modifying/appending to own mailboxes doesn't count)...
If dovecot is moving messages from one folder (that it "owns") to another folder (that it "owns"), how much of the format-specific information should be copied, if it has been instructed to do an IMAP copy? When does the difference in semantics between a server-internal IMAP COPY versus an inter-server IMAP COPY become anti-intuitive?
You'll have to explain me what I'm missing... I don't understand what you mean by an "inter-server IMAP COPY". However, if something like that exists, I still believe that when possible (e.g. the COPY is between two mbox folders in the same server, which is usually the case in a server based solely on mbox), it should preserve the format (the "From " line).
Modifying the "From " line with no reason is counter-intuitive in the first place... If users in the installation access their mailboxes only by IMAP, though, then it does not matter, and then some inconsistency (preserving the "From " line only when possible) does not hurt since it is not visible at all.
Amy!
I'm sorry for my ignorance, enlighten me... -- Tom
-- Tom Alsberg - hacker (being the best description fitting this space) Web page: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~alsbergt/ DISCLAIMER: The above message does not even necessarily represent what my fingers have typed on the keyboard, save anything further.