On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Henry Baragar wrote:Hello all, What is the semantic difference between "/folder" and "folder"?
The answer is: nothing. If a client wishes to subscribe to "/folder", then
Binc will agree to this. Binc will also show the mailbox as "/folder" in
the LSUB response. As a way to identify a mailbox, Binc treats the
following equivalently:
folder /folder /folder/ folder/
With an IMAPdir depot, bincimap creates a maildir called "folder" but records it as "/folder" in .bincimap-subscribed; which Opera reports as
This is what is meant by design.
"/folder" but Netscape reports as "folder", and SquirrelMail and Outlook won't create because of the use of the folder separator. However, both
This is also expected. Clients will sometimes strip all delimiters, with or without any real reason to.
SquirrelMail and Outlook will work with the folder if it has already been
subscribed (e.g. if one does it manually from the shell).
Will they not allow you to subscribe to the folder?
With a Maildir++ depot, binimap creates a maildir called "..folder" and records it as "INBOX//folder"; which Opera reports as "/folder" and Netscape reports as "folder". However, SquirrelMail will work if the folder has already been subscribed and Outlook crashes.
This is a bug in BincIMAP. It should not create ..folder - it should create .folder. :/ Outlook crashes? ;) Haha.
Obviously, there are differences in the implementations of the mail depots
in bincimap and within the IMAP clients. What is the expected behaviour?
Note that the IMAP standard specifies how to handle a folder separator
("/" for bincimap) anywhere in the string, except at the beginning.
Binc should, the way it's designed, strip leading and trailing delimiters
when creating, deleting, renaming or selecting mailboxes. When subscribing
or listing, it should leave them as is.
I would like to take back my "OK" and "That makes sense", since I am longer sure that it makes sense. Why is it legitimate for bincIMAP to strip leading and trailing delimiters, but not an IMAP client? Should not a "LIST" command include a "/folder" (not "folder" as is the case now in bincIMAP) if "/folder" is recorded in the subscribed file? The Unix folks learned long ago that allowing a filename to include a directory delimiter could lead to some bad situations.
Mind you, I don't know how you reconcile this with allowing "//" in the middle of a folder path. Once again, some clients don't allow you to create such a folder path, while allowing you to subscribe. Outlook crashes again in this situation.
All of this is a manifestation of an incomplete IMAP specification, isn't it?
Henry
Andy :-)
-- Henry Baragar Principal, Technical Architecture 416-453-5626 Instantiated Software Inc. http://www.instantiated.ca
