From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/29271 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Chris Richards Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: IMAP server hierarchy as topics Date: 18 Feb 2000 21:58:57 -0600 Organization: Unorganized Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <6eitzlvo5a.fsf@sloth.netpliance.net> References: <6e66vq4hcb.fsf@sloth.netpliance.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035165969 1777 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 02:06:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 02:06:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org Return-Path: Original-Received: from lisa.math.uh.edu (lisa.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.49]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 89838D051E for ; Fri, 18 Feb 2000 23:01:11 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by lisa.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAB08179; Fri, 18 Feb 2000 22:01:01 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Fri, 18 Feb 2000 22:00:26 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from mailhost.sclp.com (postfix@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA19119 for ; Fri, 18 Feb 2000 22:00:13 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sloth.netpliance.net (sloth.netpliance.net [216.136.56.80]) by mailhost.sclp.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80179D051E for ; Fri, 18 Feb 2000 23:00:18 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: (from chrisr@localhost) by sloth.netpliance.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA27128; Fri, 18 Feb 2000 21:58:57 -0600 X-Authentication-Warning: sloth.netpliance.net: chrisr set sender to cjr@netpliance.net using -f Original-To: Justin Sheehy In-Reply-To: Justin Sheehy's message of "18 Feb 2000 21:36:07 -0500" Original-Lines: 45 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) XEmacs/21.1 (Bryce Canyon) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:29271 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:29271 You are not misunderstanding. I realize that the file format is server dependent. With that said, however, most of the Unix varients that I have dealt with interact directly with /var/spool/mail (reads and writes to it) as well as read/write in mbox format to the users' home directories for sub-folders. Majority rules. I have no wishes that the feature be generalized. In fact, if it maintained the Xref and X-Gnus* tags, I would be happy. It would then be up to the user to determine what other backend (if any) could read/write locally stored files. Cheers, cjr Justin Sheehy writes: > Chris Richards writes: > > > And along those lines, it would be nice if nnimap used many of the > > same features that the nnfolder backend uses. In other words, you > > should be able to read local IMAP folders stored under ~/Mail with > > nnfolder. > > I must be misunderstanding what you are asking for. In the general > case, you certainly can't read IMAP mailboxes with nnfolder. > > IMAP is a mail access network protocol that quite intentionally does > not specify the storage format of mailboxes. It is entirely > implementation-dependent. One IMAP server might store folders in mbox > format, one might store them in an mh-like format, and another might > store them in a database. > > It is quite clear and essential that the end-user never needs to know > what format the server uses for storage. > > Thus, while users of one specific IMAP server implementation might be > able to get at their mailboxes with nnfolder, nnmh, or whatever, this > is not a feature that can be generalized. > > -Justin > >