silly quesiton [ot]

[Sam Kuper]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 07:49:56PM -0900, justina colmena ~biz wrote:
> On January 30, 2022 6:30:44 PM AKST, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2022 at 06:17:49PM -0900, justina colmena ~biz wrote:
>>> On January 30, 2022 5:46:53 PM AKST, dovecot at ptld.com wrote:
>>>> Storing mail in a db... at the end of the day isn't it still just a
>>>> file (.db file) on the drive?
>>>>
>>>> Aren't you just adding bloat and complexity vs just storing the
>>>> mail directly (maildir format) to a file on the drive? [...]
>>>
>>> You'll get better indexing and fast full text search by storing your
>>> emails in a database rather than a flat file, hopefully after
>>> decoding any attachments. Especially for spam scoring, analysis, and
>>> classification. Much better performance deleting or moving specific
>>> messages, too.
>>
>> Do you have evidence to back up these claims, specifically re: mail
>> servers?
>> 
>> Like-for-like benchmarks, for instance?
>
> Just ideas.

OK, no then.


> Removing or deleting a single message from near the beginning of a
> large flat file takes an inordinate amount of time because the
> remainder of the flat file has to be rewritten all the way from the
> point of the deleted message to the end of the file and then
> truncated.

You might want to look up what Maildir is before making bold but
apparently unfounded claims about it.

Maildir is not a "large flat file".  It is a set of conventions that
amount to a database specification, in the traditional sense of the word
"database": a system for storing data.  (Not a relational database.)

DJB developed Maildir to gain performance and reliability improvements
over mbox files.  Unlike Maildirs, mbox files *are* "large flat files".

Best wishes,

Sam

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