Subject: pine seems to modify mboxes when it opens them

From: Derek Rayside <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:43:26 -0500 (EST)

Pine seems to modify mboxes when it opens them, even if I don't do
anything in that mbox (eg, read an unread message): just open and
close.

This is problematic for me because I would like to use Unison to
synchronize mboxes on different computers, and Unison reports
conflicting updates even if (as far as I can tell) all I do is
look at the files with Pine on the other computer.

I'm using Pine 4.55 on both computers:  one is the Cygwin version, and
the other is 4.55L on Solaris.

Here's an example of what Pine does to an mbox when I open and close it:

    1,2c1,2
    < From MAILER-DAEMON Wed Jan 21 02:17:29 2004
    < Date: 21 Jan 2004 02:17:29 -0500
    ---
    > From MAILER-DAEMON Fri Jan 23 00:18:05 2004
    > Date: 23 Jan 2004 00:18:05 -0500
    5,6c5,6
    < Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
    < X-IMAP: 1074128044 0000000025
    ---
    > Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
    > X-IMAP: 1074128044 0000000032
    1463,1465d1462
    < Status:
    < X-Status:
    < X-Keywords:
    1476a1474,1477
    > Status: O
    > X-Status:
    > X-Keywords:
    > X-UID: 26

The Status/X-Status/etc flags are changed for many messages; I
truncated it here because they don't seem to be interestingly
different.

Is there some setting I can change, or is this just the way of the
world?  Or is there some reason that would make this behaviour make sense
to me?

Thanks,
Derek.

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:31:37 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

> anything in that mbox (eg, read an unread message): just open and

Pine is behaving properly, and "this is just the way of the world" as you
put it.

UNIX mail reading programs which open a traditional UNIX format mailbox
set all existing messages to have "O" (old) status.  This is interpreted
by Pine as meaning "not recent" ("recent" is an IMAP concept, and Pine is
based upon an IMAP used with IMAP).  Note that this is not the same as
"seen", which is governed by the "R" status flag.

Furthermore, Pine must also assign immutable unique identifiers (UIDs) to
all messages.  In some mail stores, this is done at message delivery, but
in traditional UNIX mailbox format this is done the first time that either
Pine or the IMAP server opens the mailbox.  While Pine is at it, it also
creates X-Status: and X-Keywords: headers since those are likely to be
needed in the future.

All of this information is message metadata.  In other mailbox formats,
this metadata is stored in a place that is external to the message text.

Instead of using Unison, you would be better using using an IMAP based
tool for mailbox synchronization.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.