--On April 11, 2007 11:53:55 AM -0400 Brian Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> I feel it is not intuitive to display INTERNALDATE because it is a
> value given by the server software rather than the original message
> itself.

Keep in mind that the Date: header isn't particularly reliable either, 
since it depends on the sender's clock being correct.  Besides, it's all 
about the user's perspective.  Some people want to know when a message was 
sent, and some want to know when it landed in their mailbox.  Neither one 
is definitively right, they are both valid.  That's why IMAP supports both.

> This can not be guaranteed to be consistent especially when
> migrating a mailbox to another server.

This isn't a problem with INTERNALDATE.  Rather, it's due to the fact that 
you are mucking around behind the IMAP server's back by editing the mail 
store directly.  I'm not saying that this is something you shouldn't do, 
just that you need to make sure you understand everything before doing it. 
In this case, you clobbered some of the message metadata because you didn't 
know it was there.

> but this may not be true when migrating to a different IMAP server
> software package. The only sure way is probably to use imapsync.

That's an even more degenerate case than editing the mail store directly. 
Different servers may have different mail store formats.  Even if they all 
use Maildir++ for message storage, they will probably use different 
mechanisms for storing metadata.  This means that not only will you need to 
figure out how to translate from one mail store format to another, but you 
may also discover that some items simply don't translate because the 
destination IMAP server doesn't have the necessary features.  For example, 
you might move from a server which supports keywords to one which does not, 
meaning any keywords that people have set on their messages will be lost. 
All bets are off when you change server software.

As for imapsync, I've never had the need to use it myself, but it does look 
like it gets the job done.  Something like that is your best bet when 
moving between different sorts of IMAP servers.

The bottom line is that INTERNALDATE serves a useful purpose for many 
people.  The fact that it can get clobbered (along with other message 
metadata), when the mail store is edited directly doesn't negate its 
usefulness.

-- 
Donald L. Nash, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Information Technology Services, The University of Texas at Austin

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