Subject: new IMAP-4 toolkit ALPHA release

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 14:33:57 -0700 (PDT)

I have placed a new alpha test release of the IMAP-4 toolkit on
ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/imap-4.ALPHA.tar.Z

This new release supports all the UNIX platforms (including non-ANSI ones)
that are supported in IMAP-3.6.BETA.

UNIX mh, news, NNTP, and POP3 drivers are not yet offered in the IMAP-4
toolkit, but these are coming next, as are DOS and Mac drivers.  When these
are finished, the alpha test will end and beta testing will begin. Sometime
during the best test I'll try to update the interface documentation; for now,
the best documentation is mail.h.

I urge all c-client software developers to look at the alpha test version now.
There are some major changes to the interface.  For the most part, programs
which were written for earlier versions of the IMAP toolkit will build under
the IMAP-4 version with minimal changes.

The most important incompatible change is that mail_find(), mail_find_all(),
and mm_mailbox() calls need to be rewritten for the new LIST mechanism.  I'm
thinking about offering a compatibility package for these routines.

However, there are other important new facilities that you should take
advantage of.  For example, mail_fetchheader() and mail_fetchtext() now return
an optional string size, so you should examine your code for strlen() calls
and rewrite it to use this new return value.  This will also make your
application less NUL-vulnerable.  Also, many features, such as the new SEARCH
capabilities, can only be used if you use the new interfaces.

-- Mark --

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