Subject: Re: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
To: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Cc: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:17:59 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
List-Id: <ietf-imapext.imc.org>

On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Barry Leiba wrote:
> (1) it's easy (and probably natural) in my server to do it in the view order,

To make sure that everybody understands; this may not necessarily be the
same order as the sequence given to the VIEW COPY command.  I think that
this is alright (since COPY and UID COPY don't promise this, nobody should
depend upon it) and it would be rather bizarre to have a VIEW but copy in
a different order.

Is everybody on board with this?

> (2) it probably doesn't matter

Agreed, modulo your point in (3)

> (3) if a user's using one client (that supports VIEW) to cause a folder to
> be sorted in another client (that doesn't), that's dicey anyway

This was my reason for suggesting it.

> The only thing I'll insist on is that this item either be a MUST or not be 
> there at all.  There is absolutely NO value in saying "the server SHOULD copy
> the items in sorted order", because then clients don't *know*, and have to 
> fall back to separate COPY commands anyway.

Agreed completely.

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 10:22:32 -0500
From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Organization: Internet Messaging Technology; TR2_Xagent=WATSON
To: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
Sender: [email-masked]

Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> Since the VIEW command allows a sort order to be specified to the server,
> wouldn't it make sense to have copies done in that sort order, rather than
> an arbitrary order? I think that's what users would expect.

Welllllll....
I think that
(1) it's easy (and probably natural) in my server to do it in the view order,
(2) it probably doesn't matter, because if a client's using VIEW to get the 
sort, it makes little difference whether we did the copy in sorted order --
the client will sort the target folder when it's opened anyway,
(3) if a user's using one client (that supports VIEW) to cause a folder to
be sorted in another client (that doesn't), that's dicey anyway, but
(4) because of point 1, I have no objection to requiring this.

The only thing I'll insist on is that this item either be a MUST or not be 
there at all.  There is absolutely NO value in saying "the server SHOULD copy
the items in sorted order", because then clients don't *know*, and have to 
fall back to separate COPY commands anyway.

Barry Leiba, Internet Messaging Technology  ([email-masked])
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/leiba

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 13:15:47 -0500
From: Cyrus Daboo <[email-masked]>
To: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
Sender: [email-masked]

At the meeting last week I was tasked in bringing the following issue to
the list: should the VIEW COPY command be required to copy messages into
the destination mailbox so that their sequence number ordering in the
destination mailbox is the same as their sorted order in the source
mailbox? This would be a MUST requirement on the server if we agree to this
idea (which was Mark C.'s).

Right now, the IMAP COPY command does not guarantee the order a group of
messages will be copied in. Thus the order of the messages in the
destination mailbox could be arbitrary, though I suspect most servers copy
in ascending sequence number order. If a user wants to copy messages from
one mailbox to another in a particular sort order, the client currently has
no option but to do one COPY command for each message in the order required
for the destination mailbox. This is very inefficient for large numbers of
messages.

Since the VIEW command allows a sort order to be specified to the server,
wouldn't it make sense to have copies done in that sort order, rather than
an arbitrary order? I think that's what users would expect.

Any comments?

--
Cyrus

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:17:59 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
To: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
cc: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing
Sender: [email-masked]

On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Barry Leiba wrote:
> (1) it's easy (and probably natural) in my server to do it in the view order,

To make sure that everybody understands; this may not necessarily be the
same order as the sequence given to the VIEW COPY command.  I think that
this is alright (since COPY and UID COPY don't promise this, nobody should
depend upon it) and it would be rather bizarre to have a VIEW but copy in
a different order.

Is everybody on board with this?

> (2) it probably doesn't matter

Agreed, modulo your point in (3)

> (3) if a user's using one client (that supports VIEW) to cause a folder to
> be sorted in another client (that doesn't), that's dicey anyway

This was my reason for suggesting it.

> The only thing I'll insist on is that this item either be a MUST or not be 
> there at all.  There is absolutely NO value in saying "the server SHOULD copy
> the items in sorted order", because then clients don't *know*, and have to 
> fall back to separate COPY commands anyway.

Agreed completely.

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 10:22:32 -0500
From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Organization: Internet Messaging Technology; TR2_Xagent=WATSON
To: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
Sender: [email-masked]

Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> Since the VIEW command allows a sort order to be specified to the server,
> wouldn't it make sense to have copies done in that sort order, rather than
> an arbitrary order? I think that's what users would expect.

Welllllll....
I think that
(1) it's easy (and probably natural) in my server to do it in the view order,
(2) it probably doesn't matter, because if a client's using VIEW to get the 
sort, it makes little difference whether we did the copy in sorted order --
the client will sort the target folder when it's opened anyway,
(3) if a user's using one client (that supports VIEW) to cause a folder to
be sorted in another client (that doesn't), that's dicey anyway, but
(4) because of point 1, I have no objection to requiring this.

The only thing I'll insist on is that this item either be a MUST or not be 
there at all.  There is absolutely NO value in saying "the server SHOULD copy
the items in sorted order", because then clients don't *know*, and have to 
fall back to separate COPY commands anyway.

Barry Leiba, Internet Messaging Technology  ([email-masked])
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/leiba

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 13:15:47 -0500
From: Cyrus Daboo <[email-masked]>
To: IMAP Extensions WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: [VIEW] copies should be sorted?
Sender: [email-masked]

At the meeting last week I was tasked in bringing the following issue to
the list: should the VIEW COPY command be required to copy messages into
the destination mailbox so that their sequence number ordering in the
destination mailbox is the same as their sorted order in the source
mailbox? This would be a MUST requirement on the server if we agree to this
idea (which was Mark C.'s).

Right now, the IMAP COPY command does not guarantee the order a group of
messages will be copied in. Thus the order of the messages in the
destination mailbox could be arbitrary, though I suspect most servers copy
in ascending sequence number order. If a user wants to copy messages from
one mailbox to another in a particular sort order, the client currently has
no option but to do one COPY command for each message in the order required
for the destination mailbox. This is very inefficient for large numbers of
messages.

Since the VIEW command allows a sort order to be specified to the server,
wouldn't it make sense to have copies done in that sort order, rather than
an arbitrary order? I think that's what users would expect.

Any comments?

--
Cyrus