On 14.9.2011, at 14.14, Gerald LaMontagne wrote:

I'm developing an IMAP client library in lua and tried using a literal form of the STATUS command. Dovecot rejected the command. I was successfully able to use a literal form of the LOGIN command, so I have some confidence in my code working properly.

There are no "literal forms of commands". Individual parameters have literal forms. In LOGIN command the username and password can be literals. In STATUS the mailbox name can be a literal, which is followed by a list of atoms.

Is this correct and, if so, is there a list of IMAP commands that don't support the literal form? I searched hi and lo for something, but have been unable to find an answer.

Read the ABNF rules from RFC 3501. They tell exactly what is allowed.