On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
> It make sense. Imagine a server processing a search:
> for each message in the mailbox:
> think about whether this message matches the search
> if there are any matches that have been known for two seconds:
> send all matches so far in a response and clear the list
> send any remaining matches
> send tagged ok
> This permits a smart client to begin to display results after only two
> seconds, instead of waiting until the entire million-message mailbox
> has been considered.
That wouldn't work, because IMAP doesn't guarantee any processing order;
it just guarantees that everything was done when the tagged OK comes back.
For example, a server can respond to FETCH 1:4 FLAGS with
* 3 FETCH (FLAGS ...)
* 1 FETCH (FLAGS ...)
* 4 FETCH (FLAGS ...)
* 2 FETCH (FLAGS ...)
A client which expects these responses to be in ascending order is broken.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
