On 6/2/2005 02:09 PM, Tony Boom wrote:
Well now, maybe it's not my server at fault after all... I'm pretty sure it
is a major contributor though but it does look as if TB is lacking
somewhere on that front if it's the only IMAP client that has threading
problems with my posts.
This is a bit long, but here goes...
I have studied the source of some of your replies, replies from others
using TB! and RFC 2822 (Internet Message Format). Here is what I came up
with... The RFC states:
"The "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields are used when creating a
reply to a message. They hold the message identifier of the original
message and the message identifiers of other messages (for example,
in the case of a reply to a message which was itself a reply). The
"In-Reply-To:" field may be used to identify the message (or
messages) to which the new message is a reply, while the
"References:" field may be used to identify a "thread" of
conversation.
When creating a reply to a message, the "In-Reply-To:" and
"References:" fields of the resultant message are constructed as
follows:
The "In-Reply-To:" field will contain the contents of the "Message-
ID:" field of the message to which this one is a reply (the "parent
message"). If there is more than one parent message, then the "In-
Reply-To:" field will contain the contents of all of the parents'
"Message-ID:" fields."
Now the "Message-ID:" field, as per the RFC is:
message-id = "Message-ID:" msg-id CRLF
This means the "Message-ID:" field contains the data within msg-id and
CRLF which is basically a new line separator control character, ie "Return".
Now the msg-id is defined in the RFC as a "The message identifier
(msg-id) itself MUST be a globally unique identifier for a message. The
generator of the message identifier MUST guarantee that the msg-id is
unique." (This is where I think you are saying your IMAP host could be
at fault.) The format for the msg-id in the RFC is:
msg-id = [CFWS] "<" id-left "@" id-right ">" [CFWS]
Well if we keep reading the RFC...
"Semantically, the angle bracket characters are not part of the
msg-id; the msg-id is what is contained between the two angle bracket
characters."
Ohhhhhh, the good old angle brackets ( < > ).... They are not part of
the msg-id, and therefore not part of the "in-reply-to" and "references"
fields either because the RFC defines these as:
in-reply-to = "In-Reply-To:" 1*msg-id CRLF
references = "References:" 1*msg-id CRLF
All of your in-reply-to and references the < > characters around
original msg-id, but not the subsequent messages in that thread. TB! I
believe is not threading properly because they aren't there. A quick
e-mail to Mozilla confirmed T-Bird will thread with or without the angle
brackets. Interestingly, T-Bird places the angle brackets around their
fields because, though not RFC compliant, it is the most common method
in use and causes fewer problems. Apparently Mulberry is strictly RFC
compliant (as advertised) and does not use the angle brackets which
causes TB! to choke on threading.
--
Mike
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