I was hoping that I could use the UIDVALIDITY in some way to identify a
"unique" folder on the server (i.e. with the name). But obviously this
won't work...
Marc
Mark Crispin wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jul 2005, Marc Blank wrote:
I've noticed that on at least one server running UW-IMAP, that an
empty folder (in this case Drafts), when SELECTed at various times and
in various sessions, keeps returning a different UIDVALIDITY value.
Is this correct behavior?
It's permitted behavior by the IMAP specification. UW imapd does not
consider it to be good behavior, but it's unavoidable.
What's going on is that the file is truly empty, and thus does not have
any metadata. In traditional UNIX mailbox format, the widely-derided
"DO NOT DELETE" internal pseudo-message (which UW imapd, Pine, etc.
hides) contains the metadata; but this upsets some people, and so they
do things to prevent the pseudo-message and/or destroy it. [The issue
is shell tests that treat empty files as "no mail" and non-empty files
as "mail exists"]
Fortunately, since the mailbox is empty, a changing UIDVALIDITY value
should not overly-upset a client. The client should just say "oh well"
and update its record of the UIDVALIDITY. Since, as you saw, this can
be routine in some environments, it's not an event that is worth
logging, much less complainig to the user.
In some formats, such as UW imapd's preferred mbx, an empty mailbox is
not an empty file, and thus this problem does not occur.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
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