Subject: Re: SEARCH HEADER

From: Marcel Parodi <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 09:09:00 +0100

Thanks, Mark, for your explanations.

[...]
> Two things: first, use imap-4.5 instead of imap-4.4:
> 	ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/imap-4.5.BETA.tar.Z
> imap-4.4 had a bug which broken SEARCH HEADER.

I didn't know 4.5.BETA is available. Where do you announce new releases?
Do you think it's safe to use this BETA or should I wait for the final?

[...]
> > I found the function mail_newsearchheader in mail.c which could be useful
> > for this purpose, but strange enough it's not used at all in the whole code.
> 
> That's because you call it, in the course of building your SEARCHPGM.  Look at
> imapd.c to see how to do this.

I've been looking at mtest which still uses mail_search().

> The mail_search() jacket will never be extended to cover IMAP4 search
> criteria.  It is for compatibility with old softwareonly.  Use the new
> mail_search_full() interface instead.

Could you explain me the reason for this design decision?
Now that mail_search() should not be used any more, the code to build the
searchpgm must be rewritten in every application. It would be rather easy
to make mail_search() available as a perl command in Mail::Cclient, but
now it's necessary to put this "jacket code" into the interface definition
in Cclient.xs.
Do you know the people working on Mail::Cclient? Or are you involved in its
development yourself?

Regards,
Marcel.

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 00:14:54 -0800 (PST)

> Do you think it's safe to use this BETA or should I wait for the final?

imap-4.5 is almost in final form, and I think that it is safe to use.  It will
be finalized when Pine 4.10 is released.  Just be sure to pick up the final
version when it is released (it'll be announced on the IMAP and c-client
lists).

> I've been looking at mtest which still uses mail_search().

mtest should considered to be nothing more than a most basic possible program.
It is certainly not an example of how to do complex c-client operations.

> Could you explain me the reason for this design decision?

IMAP4 searches are much more complex.  It's much easier to build a searchpgm
than it is to generate IMAP4 format SEARCH criteria.  In general, a user
program does not want to type in SEARCH criteria either.

---

From: Malcolm Beattie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 17:59:12 +0000 (GMT)

> Do you know the people working on Mail::Cclient? Or are you involved in its

I wrote Mail::Cclient and my name and email address are included at
the bottom of the man page/pod page that it installs. Somebody who
has need of mail_search is already working on including it and I will
be looking at his patches with a view to including them.

--Malcolm

-- 
Malcolm Beattie <[email-masked]>
Unix Systems Programmer
Oxford University Computing Services