Re: (provide 'nnmaildir)

[Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>]

Steve Harris <sharris@primus.com> writes:

> > It might translate back and forth between Gnus-article# and
> > IMAP-article# but that would be really slow, and the whole point of
> > having state in the server is lost.
> 
> Simon,
> 
> Having seen your reiteration above, do you have any answers to my
> question of what needs to change in Gnus to support _proper_ operation
> of nnimap with maildir-inspired IDs? Is it even possible?

The maildir ID situation doesn't apply -- we don't get to assign
article numbers like nnmaildir can.  (If I'm wrong about this, please
describe how it would work, I can't see it.)

There are at least four solutions to the large-UIDs-from-IMAP-server
problem (I'm not saying they are good or realistic):

. Make elisp integers hold at least 32 bit integers and re-write
  gnus-range.el in C to make it fast.

. Implement the translation back and forth between gnus-article number
  and imap-article number, within nnimap.

        This is ``hairy''.  Remember -- the IMAP library uses elisp
        integers when dealing with articles so you'd basicly have to
        implement a (efficient) bignum-implementation and make it work
        within the IMAP parser.  When this is done you'd need, in
        nnimap, somehow convert the 1..2^32 range into the 1..2^28
        range, with the properties of starting at a low value and
        being monotonously increasing and contigious, that Gnus can
        handle.

. make Gnus accept non-integer article references.

        This might be a good thing anyway (think of using URLs to
        reference articles), but you'd still need to do most of the
        work in the previous point though.

. change/modify your server.

Since nnmaildir seem to be coming, it might be a more realistic
solution for you.