On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Mark Crispin wrote:

> > Yes. IMHO, Rob is right.
>
> Then that the concensus is that IMAP should be less useful and ambiguous.

I don't think IMAP has anything to say on the matter, really, since the
specification has remained silent on the issue.

> If not, then please think about the consequences of what you are saying
> vis-a-vis a mail store in which a \NoSelect name may exist without
> children.

I think perhaps the perception is (rightly or wrongly) that the use of a
trailing hierarchy separator is a *slang* for "this is a
directory-mailbox".

Really, I don't see the need for a server to ever advertise a \NoSelect
mailbox with no children, since it doesn't have any useful information --
the user can't do anything *but* create a mailbox there.

And if a user wants to create a sub-mailbox of such a hierarchy, they can
just issue a full create command to make the sub-mailbox (the server would
have to create the upper levels anyway).  If they want to create a
message-containing mailbox where the directory already exists and the
server does not support dual-use, the server can remove the directory and
replace it with a flat-file mailbox (or whatever).

I'm not going to argue that any given server isn't free to use this
convention of trailing hierarchy separator, but we're far from making IMAP
a generally less useful protocol by not using it.

-Rob

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Rob Siemborski | Andrew Systems Group * Research Systems Programmer
PGP:0x5CE32FCC | Cyert Hall 207 * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * 412.268.7456
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