Re: Skip intermediate mbox file in mail-sources?

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Tue, 27 May 2003, dmaze@MIT.EDU wrote:
> Is there a reason the intermediate mbox file is necessary?  (I could
> entirely believe that, once upon a time, GNUS only grokked mbox
> format, and "translate anything to mbox" was the easiest way to add
> more mail sources.)  With formats like directory, pop, maildir, and
> imap, where you can readily fetch a message at a time, this adds an
> unnecessary layer of indirection.  

I think it makes sense to have a uniform format for incoming mail.  I
don't think mbox is it, but there should be just one format.  How
about a message digest with MIME attachments?  Gnus already has the
functionality to parse those, so the backend modifications should be
fairly simple.

Fetching a message at a time may be inconvenient or unfeasible, so I
think a format like digests that allows 1 to N attachments with
minimal overhead and no quoting issues is nice.

> This also results in side effects: From at the start of the line
> gets the ugly mbox quoting, which really shouldn't be necessary
> unless the backend is also in mbox format.

MIME attachments would avoid this problem and most others with the
mbox format, I think.

Ted