UIDVALIDITY response optional?

[Pete Maclean]

I have been looking at the transcript of an IMAP testing session that shows 
some very strange behavior on the part of the server concerned.  Some of 
its behavior is unequivocally wrong.  One element seems wrong but I am not 
100% certain.  This server (which I cannot identify since it has not been 
identified to me) claims IMAP4Rev1 compliance by virtue of its initial 
response (* OK IMAP4rev1 Service Ready).  But when sent a SELECT command 
that succeeds, it does not return a UIDVALIDITY response.

Now RFC 3501 states that, "If [the UIDVALIDITY response] is missing, the 
server does not support unique identifiers."  After trying to reconcile 
this with the rest of the document I think it must be inaccurate, perhaps a 
vestige of some historical variance.  Elsewhere the spec leaves no 
ambiguity:  UIDs and UIDVALIDITYs are absolutely required.  And, since 
there is no way to get a UIDVALIDITY other than in a UIDVALIDITY response 
to a SELECT or EXAMINE command, that response must be required.  Is my 
analysis correct?

Pete Maclean
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