Re: Extending 'mbox:' URL

[Alain Magloire]

> Bonjour,
> 
> I'd like to propose an extension to the existing 'mbox:' url format
> that will allow to use mailspool hashing schemes. Such schemes reduce
> the mailbox access time for sites with a big number of mail boxes.
> Widely deployed hashing schemes are:
> 
>  1. Indexing by first 'n' letters of a login name. For example, when
>     n=2 the mailbox for user 'gray' is '/var/spool/mail/g/r/gray'.
>     When n=0 this produces usual mailspool names.
>  2. Indexing by last 'n' letters of a login name. This provides a
>     better average distribution than the first method.
>  3. Hashing first 'n' letters of a username.
> 
> Here is the proposed url format:
> 
>   mbox:path[;type=TYPE][;param=NUM][;user=USERNAME]
> 
> Keywords are:
>  type  -- The hashing scheme type. E.g.: "index", "rev-index" and "hash"
>           for the three schemes described.
>  param -- Number of letters from the username to be used in hashing scheme.
>  user  -- A username.
> 
> For example, the url
> 
>  mbox:/var/spool/mail;type=index;param=2;user=gray
> 
> produces the following mailbox path:
> 
>  /var/spool/mail/g/r/gray
> 
> When no keywords are used, the url coincides with the format currently in
> use by mailutils. 
> If user= is used as the last keyword, the url allows for creating the mailbox
> names by simply appending a username to the url, so any existing code like
> 
>     sprintf (buf, "%s/%s", _PATH_MAILDIR, username)
> 
> could simply be rewritten as
> 
>     sprintf (buf, "%s%s", maildir, username)
>     
> (Assuming maildir is in mbox: format).
> 
> I have prepared an implementation of this extension. Any objections
> if I commit it?

Cool !!!

Since  the "mbox:" scheme did not have any specific syntax, that's cool with me.

I know this is brief but that's all the time I have 8( will try to catch
you guys later).