MBOX-Line: From Pidgeot18 at verizon.net  Mon Jul 14 19:59:21 2008
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.net>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:42 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] More questions re IMAP RFCs
Message-ID: <487C1289.7000902@verizon.net>

First off, thanks to those of you who provided resources in my last 
thread; I have found them of use, although the wiki looks like it could 
use some work.

I still have more questions related to the protocol, though:

1. Is it required that there be a namespace consisting of ""? If not, 
then what are the implications for INBOX?

2. The explanation "CHECK" says
>  The CHECK command requests a checkpoint of the currently selected
>  mailbox.  A checkpoint refers to any implementation-dependent
>  housekeeping associated with the mailbox (e.g., resolving the
>  server's in-memory state of the mailbox with the state on its disk)
>  that is not normally executed as part of each command.  A checkpoint
>  MAY take a non-instantaneous amount of real time to complete.  If a
>  server implementation has no such housekeeping considerations, CHECK
>  is equivalent to NOOP.

Which, if any, other commands imply a housekeeping update? I presume 
CLOSE and LOGOUT would have similar semantics, and another developer 
suggested that EXPUNGE might.
Also, which data need not be saved?

3. For testing purposes, would it be better to:
  a) Return PREAUTH in the initial response
  b) Fail to support LOGINDISABLED as a capability without using TLS
  c) Blithely return OK to all AUTHENTICATE requests (again without TLS)

4. How supported and/or stable is the EAI-IMAP-UTF8 spec? Folding in 
some of my questions on this spec:
  a) How does this interoperate with legacy modified UTF-7 mailbox names?
  b) If a server treats mailbox names as case-insensitive, should it 
treat the UTF-8 names as case-insensitive only with respect to ASCII, 
similar to how the UTF-7 version treated it?
  c) What is the rational behind forbidding UTF-8 non-ASCII characters 
in "" strings?
  d) Are literals assumed to be UTF-8 if not otherwise specified? (e.g.,
C: 1 SELECT {6+}
C: mail?
should be considered a legal mailbox of the name "mail?" and not 
semantically invalid)

5. (Not related to RFCs or draft RFCs) Is there a public IMAP server 
containing the imap-protocol archives as a mailbox or namespace that I 
can use for searching? Mailman does not make using list archives easy...

Once again, thanks in advance for your responses.

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth


