From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/22137 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: bad (i.e. serious) mail problems Date: 30 Mar 1999 17:34:58 +0200 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <99Mar30.101746est.13914-3@gateway.intersys.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035160112 26568 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:28:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:28:32 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA06788 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 10:36:27 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAB11171; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:35:45 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:35:56 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA09447 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:35:48 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de (waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de [129.217.4.42]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA06767 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 10:35:35 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from ramses.cs.uni-dortmund.de (ramses.cs.uni-dortmund.de [129.217.20.180]) by waldorf.cs.uni-dortmund.de with SMTP id QAA26394 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 16:35:00 +0100 (MET) Original-Received: (grossjoh@localhost) by ramses.cs.uni-dortmund.de id RAA19663; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 17:34:58 +0200 Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: Stainless Steel Rat's message of "Tue, 30 Mar 1999 10:20:04 -0500" Original-Lines: 46 User-Agent: Gnus/5.07008 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.80) Emacs/20.3 Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:22137 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:22137 Stainless Steel Rat writes: > * Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE on Tue, 30 Mar 1999 > | Why should a POP server delimit messages in mbox style? > > It does not. The POP server uses the whatever delimiters have > been created by the MTA to determine where messages begin. What > as this is usually an RFC 821 envelope, RFC 821 envelopes are used > as delimiters. A message comes in via SMTP. How it gets from there to the POP server is not defined. Maybe there are no delimiters (other than end-of-file, or the closing of a socket) at all? > | The POP protocol says (I think) that a message is terminated by a "." > | line, > > The '.' is just that, a terminator for the RETR command. It tells the POP > client that the server has finished transmitting a message. The dot > terminator is stripped by the client. Right. So, the client (including pop3.el) knows that the end of the message must be right before the dot. pop3.el, however, does not make sure that these are the endings of messages in its output file. > | and internally, the POP server could well use any mechanism for storing > | messages, such as a file per message, or an RDBMS. > > POP servers do not store anything anywhere. IMAP does, but IMAP is so > different from POP that comparing them is like comparing Gnus to a ball of > yarn. Hm? Neither protocol says anything about storage. But certainly, the messages must be stored somewhere, for the POP and IMAP servers to be able to output them. Nobody says that this has got to be a file in /var/spool/mail for POP servers and something else for IMAP servers. Let me rephrase my sentence: ... and the message store accessed by the POP server could use any method at all, such as a file per message, or an RDBMS. kai -- I'd like to welcome you and an orange juice, please.