On Wed, 25 Sep 2002 10:43:41 +0200, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > Hm. Is the server even allowed to give different responses to two FETCH > commands for the same item? > > C: a FETCH 1 RFC822.SIZE > S: * 1 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 12345) > S: a OK > C: b IDLE > S: + > S: DONE > S: b OK > C: c FETCH 1 RFC822.SIZE > S: * 1 FETCH (RFC822.SIZE 42) > S: c OK > > (42 being a suitable RFC822.SIZE for a dummy message.)
In my opinion, that would not be good behavior. Once the server has real data in its metadata cache, it should retain it even if it sends a dummy. So I don't think that it should shrink RFC822.SIZE. However, note that dummy messages are not a preferred behavior; they are just better than sending a NO. Clients are still going to be confused by them (albeit less confused than by a NO).
