Shortcomings of Maildir++ layout

[Hadmut Danisch]

Hi,

I am trying to deal with the problem, that under regular mbox format a
path can lead to either a file or a directory, but not both, while under
IMAP, a path is usually both, a message folder containing subfolders.

I found dovecot's approach to this problem, the Maildir++ layout
described under http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MboxChildFolders , and was
astonished to see, what problems come with Maildir++ and how complicated
dovecot tries to deal with them.


I wonder why dovecot is not using a much easier approach and just uses a
configurable prefix and/or suffix like .dir or ____ for directory names,
e.g.


INBOX   ->   ~/mail/inbox

abc       ->    ~/mail/abc

abc/def ->   ~/mail/abc.dir/def    or ~/mail/___abc___/def


which would make all that trouble with .subscriptions and .index much
more easier. In my eyes the Maildir++ layout is overcomplicated because
of the heap of workarounds to the self-created problems.


regards
Hadmut