Extra Header field
Stuart K. Bingë
omicron-list at mighty.co.za
Mon Jul 12 19:37:35 CEST 2004
Hi Martin,
On Monday, 12 July 2004 18:40, Martin Konold wrote:
> > > Why don't you use the IMAP UID instead?
> >
> > Because it is not constant across object modification.
>
> Please explain this in more detail. I currently fail to understand why the
> UID in the Subject would solve that problem.
Please excuse me if I'm repeating information that you are already aware of -
I'm just trying to present a complete picture here.
Once a UID is initially assigned to an object, it uniquely identifies that
object over its lifetime. Throughout this period, due to modification of the
object, it may be contained in several different IMAP messages, all with
different IMAP UIDs. However, the UID that we assign to the object on its
creation stays constant throughout all this - and this is in fact the only
way I can reference that specific object.
When loading in the list of objects, all that I can do is pass Horde an array
containing the UIDs of all the objects that were present, along with some
cursory information about the objects so that a listing page can be
displayed. Once Horde has generated this page, and a user clicks on an object
of interest, Horde again calls my driver to "fully" load the object of
interest - and all I am given to reference this object is its UID.
My scripts do not exist/are not running between these page loads, therefore
for either of these calls I have no idea what was previously loaded. All I
know is what I need to load.
Furthermore, when I modify a message (or any other client modifies it, for
that matter), its IMAP UID changes - if this is the UID I then passed to
Horde, and a user requests to view that specific object, I'll be stuck in the
situation of loading the incorrect data *and* not knowing that I am doing so.
This is why I need to ensure I have some sort of "true" UID that I can use to
reference the object.
Having the UID in the subject would not solve the problem - that is what we
have the <uid> tag in the XML definition for. The reason I would want the UID
in the Subject or in an X-Header is purely for efficiency - both in my code
and in terms of load on the server - as I can then IMAP SEARCH for the object
of interest instead of having to manually parse every message in the mailbox
to find the one I'm looking for. This is in fact very similar to the issue
that Joon is having with the "content" header.
> Basically in order to have the full information about a calendar you need
> to read all messages and you must monitor all new messages. So how can you
> "loose" an IMAP UID?
I cannot monitor the mailbox. Every time a page, such as a mailbox listing
page or a calendar view, is loaded, I have to then re-read the entire message
list. I am given no knowledge about what has already been loaded, whether it
was sufficient, whether anything has changed, etc. All I am told is "load
everything" or "load the object with UID X".
> After all there is no modification in IMAP only new and delete.
Exactly - you "modify" an object by creating a new one with the updated
information, and delete the older one; with these operations you are then
assigned a different IMAP UID for the same object, making it an essentially
useless UID (for our purposes).
--
Stuart Bingë
Code Fusion cc.
Office: +27 11 673 0411
Mobile: +27 83 298 9727
Email: s.binge at codefusion.co.za
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