On 1/9/07, Stefano Bagnara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
robert burrell donkin wrote:
<snip>
> IMAP as a protocol has some commands which are naturally stateful and > some which are more naturally stateless. superficially at least, it > seems more natural to me to think about a stateful session layering > above a lower level stateless API. > > but these are just ideas Can you make an example? I'm not sure I understand.
drilling down from the general: perhaps a client wants to know which emails in a mailbox have meta-data matching certain criteria. for example, all messages which have not been answered and have not been read. when using IMAP, one way to do this is by issuing a SEARCH command specifying mailbox and the criteria. AFIAK this command does not depend on which mailbox has been selected or the current client state, just the data. this is basically an atomic, stateless operation. there should be no need to open a heavyweight session to execute it. querying meta-data about an email (headers and so on) to find URIs for all emails matching these criteria sounds like an operation which is generic and suitable for a high level API. - robert --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]