Q: Mailbox format

[S P Arif Sahari Wibowo]

Hi!

Few months ago in one TLUG meeting we talked about IMAP server & the
mailbox format it used. Part of it was about how maildir format is much 
better than single file as a mailbox.

Well, in 1999 Mark Crispin wrote an article about mailbox format, and he 
wrote why maildir (file per message) format is not a good idea. Is his 
reasoning not correct or not applicable anymore?

http://www.washington.edu/imap/documentation/formats.txt.html
 ...

There's a general reason why file/message formats are a bad idea. Just
about every filesystem in existance serializes file creation and deletions
because these manipulate the free space map.  This turns out to be an
enormous problem when you start creating/deleting more than a few messages
per second; you spend all your time thrashing in the filesystem.
 
It is also extremely slow to do a text search through a file/message
format mailbox.  All of those open()s and close()s really add up to major
filesystem thrashing.
 ...



Thank you for your opinion!

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                               Stephan Paul Arif Sahari Wibowo
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