MBOX-Line: From guenther+imap at sendmail.com  Thu May 26 12:59:35 2011
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Philip Guenther <guenther+imap@sendmail.com>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:46 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] History question.
In-Reply-To: <4DDEA412.6030305@aol.com>
References: <4DDEA412.6030305@aol.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSO.2.00.1105261253510.31737@morgaine.smi.sendmail.com>

On Thu, 26 May 2011, John Snow wrote:
> My question is simply, why?  Why is the sequence number needed when the 
> command specified a UID, and the UID must be included in the response.  
> Seems to me the UID command should have a UID response. snow.

Right now, a client can parse a FETCH response at any time, inserting it 
into its cache without having to consider any context of pending commands.  
Indeed, the server can send FETCH responses at any time (modulus TCP 
flow-control/deadlock concerns), and it's *required* to do so for flag 
changes.  Sometimes using the UID and sometimes using msgno would make 
such unsolicited FETCH responses ambiguous.


Philip Guenther

