ned.freed@mrochek.com
Mon, 17 Dec 2001 17:26:34 -0800 (PST)
> > Um... No, this NOT IMAP poking it's nose where it doesn't belong. It's
> > a critical part of the design of the offline mode of IMAP.
> > IMAP clients depend on the fact that UIDs are assigned to messages that
> > are constant and are strictly increasing (note: NOT monotonically). If
> > this constraint is violated, then a client does not have the ability to
> > resynchronize with the server.
And this condition may be satisfied by assigning UIDs to messages when
the IMAP server first encounters them. It may be impractical to assign them
at the time the messages are added to a given folder.
> We may be talking at cross purposes. I believe I understand the role of
> UIDs perfectly and appreciate their enormous value in the overall IMAP
> design. I was taking issue only with the question of exactly when they
> must be assigned. I cannot see that it matters if a message is not
> assigned an IMAP UID if IMAP never sees that message.
Quite right.
> On the other hand, there are so many ways to interpret things that this may
> all be moot. My IMAP server assigns UIDs to messages that don't have them
> when it opens a folder. I tend to think of a message being added to a
> folder when a transport provider or client puts it there. But we could say
> that a "MAPI folder" virtually becomes an "IMAP folder" when and only when
> the server opens it and, in that virtual sense, new messages are added and
> assigned UIDs only at that point. In which case I am following this part
> of the spec to the letter.
Well, the messages really are there with no UIDs assigned, so I prefer
to think of it as assignment when the folder is first opened by IMAP.
Ned
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Tue Dec 18 2001 - 03:31:11 IST