MBOX-Line: From barryleiba at computer.org  Fri Feb 18 14:12:57 2011
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
From: Barry Leiba <barryleiba@computer.org>
Date: Fri Jun  8 12:34:45 2018
Subject: [Imap-protocol] detecting new messages
In-Reply-To: <alpine.OSX.2.00.1102171137330.782@hsinghsing.panda.com>
References: <2CA53ECF4094AB4D8BDC7C60A75B1C02110BEAFC52@hawaii.shoretel.com>
	<5398C04A-99D8-47E5-ABB8-AE10B168F3C4@iki.fi>
	<alpine.OSX.2.00.1102171137330.782@hsinghsing.panda.com>
Message-ID: <AANLkTik3TXwOXw1UFxri0FZDMmfD3YVznBnpe+sOjT0Z@mail.gmail.com>

Just to make sure it's clear, and please excuse the pedantry:

> will given that value as its UID; it may be given a higher value. ?Nor is
> there any guarantee that UIDNEXT is monotonically greater than the highest
> assigned UID.
...
> The fact that some servers assign UIDs monotonically does not mean that
> servers are required to make monotonic assignments.

Mark doesn't actually mean "monotonic", here... UIDs are *always*
monotonically increasing, which only means that they increase but
never decrease -- a new UID is always greater than all old UIDs
(unless UIDVALIDITY changes).

What he means -- and the best single word that says it is
"sequentially" -- is that there's no guarantee that they increase by
one.  So, re-phrasing those two sentences above:

"Nor is there any guarantee that UIDNEXT is exactly one greater than
the highest assigned UID."
...
"The fact that some servers assign UIDs in strict '+1' sequence does
not mean that servers are required to make assignments that way."

-- Barry, ever pedantic but always striving for clarity

