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Re: [Nmh-workers] mh and mairix and numerically named folders
From: |
Paul Fox |
Subject: |
Re: [Nmh-workers] mh and mairix and numerically named folders |
Date: |
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 10:28:42 -0500 |
ken wrote:
> >so my question, before i report this as a limitation with mairix: is
> >there any reason that an MH folder shouldn't have an all-numeric name?
> >i did grep the man pages a bit, but didn't find a specification for
> >folder names
>
> So, the answer is ... you should not have a folder with an all-numeric name.
okay. i can live with that.
i don't think the behavior needs to change, although perhaps it
shouldn't have been so easy to create the folder in the first place.
$ refile +1234
Create folder "/home/pgf/Mail/1234"?
a quick look says that create_folder() and rcvstore.c:main() might be
candidates for an error check. there's also make_intermediates(), but
it's a utility function, and i don't think that it's ever used to
create a folder.
in the meantime, any objections if i add this new section to
mh-folders.man, or something like it?
Naming
nmh folders can be given arbitrary names, with one exception:
folders should not be given all-numeric names. This
limitation results from nmh messages themselves being stored
in numerically named files -- allowing folders to be named
similarly would make nmh slower, and introduce usage ambiguities.
paul
> I looked at folder_read(), the main function that nmh uses to scan a
> folder and create the folder structure (which contains an index of all
> valid messages). It calls readdir() on a directory and checks to see if
> atoi() works on the filename; if it succeeds then it assumes that it's a
> message. It does NOT check if the file is a directory or not (normally
> stat() is not called on every message as that would be too expensive).
> In theory you could use d_type that's part of struct dirent to see if
> it's a file or not, but not all operating systems or filesystems support
> that and I am reluctant to change long-standing practice for what is
> admittedly an edge case.
>
> While it may 'work' in the short term, I think like Conrad said you'll
> run into problems in the long run.
>
> --Ken
>
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=----------------------
paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 53.2 degrees)