On 28 September 1998, David W. Tamkin <dattier(_at_)Mcs(_dot_)Net> wrote:
Bennett Todd suggested for Era Eriksson's description of folders,
[...]
| Another popular folder format is MH, in which the folder is a
| directory, and each message is a separate file; the filenames are
| the message numbers. Another popular folder format is Maildir; a
| Maildir folder is a directory, with three subdirectories named
| "tmp", "new", and "cur". Messages are written into "tmp", then moved
| to "new" to commit the delivery. As messages are read, they're moved
| from "new" to "cur", and renamed to append flags for the message
| status. In Maildir folders the files have long, complex names
| intended to ensure that all filenames are unique. Maildir is the
| only mail folder format that requires no locking."
The last statement is incorrect. Deliveries to ordinary directories
or to MH-style directories do not require locking either, because
procmail picks a unique filename for each message.
[...]
The MTAs writing to MH folders don't require locking, but the
MH-compliant MUAs do, since they need to update the .mh_sequences files
whenever they read a new message. The MUAs may choose to ignore the
.mh_sequences files, but people tend to see this as a bug, since the
"real" MH depends on their contents being in synch with the folder.
Regards,
Liviu
--
Dr. Liviu Daia e-mail: daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro
Institute of Mathematics web page: http://www.imar.ro/~daia
of the Romanian Academy PGP key: finger
daia(_at_)stoilow(_dot_)imar(_dot_)ro