From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu, John Barham <jbarham@gmail.com>
References: <2fc64781a8f55e18376a84f8fe0a630e@collyer.net>
	<20060120053137.1761.qmail@g.galapagos.bx.psu.edu>
	<4f34febc0601192204u4787baa6w92c16b49834e1709@mail.gmail.com>
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In-Reply-To: <4f34febc0601192204u4787baa6w92c16b49834e1709@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [9fans] acme mail on unix
Message-Id: <20060120135038.04867B095F@conchobor.berzerked.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:50:38 -0500
Cc: 
Topicbox-Message-UUID: e12c5c8a-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

the standard for the top level is $home/.maildir or $home/Maildir (cyrus).
you can get away with only working with $MAILDIR/new if you don't
have a need for maildir-style folders (which start with a "." and get utf-7-
encoded).

there is disagreement about the format of the unique.file.name. the cyrus 
maildir man page says this:

      A new unique filename is created  using  one  of  two  possible  forms:
       ``time.MusecPpid.host'',  or  ``time.MusecPpid_unique.host''.  ``time''
       and ``usec'' is the current system time, obtained from gettimeofday(2).
       ``pid''  is  the  process number of the process that is delivering this
       message to the maildir.  ``host'' is the name of the machine where  the
       mail  is  being  delivered.

their maildir files look like this

1136731697.M580106P15382V0000000000000303I0009030C_0.conchobor.berzerked.org,S=2872

(the S=2872 is the file size. i'm not sure why stat is so expensive on their machine.)
but postfix gives you this:

1137764424.Vfe04I16e1M435392.dexter-peak.quanstro.net

and fetchmail gives you this

1125641448.1984_0.dexter-peak

i don't use djb's stuff, but i'm sure he disagrees with all of these formats. ;-)
i see the important part of the file format to be time "." unique-extension.

i wrote a set of programs for reading mail in maildirs (from, mcat, mimedesc,
e.g.). they get buy by not paying any attention to the file names.

- erik

John Barham <jbarham@gmail.com> writes

| 
| > Maildir uses the structure folder/{tmp,cur,new}/unique.file.name.
| > The files are required to be uniquely named, and there is a convention for
| > the intermediate directories.  djb has a brief but detailed specification
| > under cr.yp.to somewhere, if you want to google for it.
| 
| http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html