Re: What does “remove” mean?

[David Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com>]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply…

At Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:53:21 +0200, David Maus wrote:
> 
> David Abrahams wrote:
> 
> >So I'm looking at this help:
> 
> >  wl-dispose-folder-alist is a variable defined in `wl-vars.el'.
> >  Its value is 
> >  (("^-" . remove)
> >   ("^@" . remove))
> 
> 
> >I know what “refile” means.  What does “remove” mean?
> 
> "Remove" means: Deleting.  Internally it is refiling the messages to
> ELMO's equivalent of /dev/null (elmo-null-folder).

Okay, interesting.

> >Especially, what does it mean in the case where the pattern matches
> >"^-", i.e., an NNTP folder.  
> 
> The original message will be deleted, so for nntp it is putting the
> message in the killfile:
> 
> ,----
> | (luna-define-method elmo-folder-delete-messages ((folder elmo-nntp-folder)
> | 						 numbers)
> |   (elmo-folder-kill-messages folder numbers)
> |   t)
> `----

Hmm, I notice that the concept of “killed” messages isn't documented
anywhere.  Dispose functionality aside, does WL support a killfile for
all kinds of folders, or just for NNTP?

> >And what does it mean in the case of IMAP, where messages can be
> >deleted or expunged?
> 
> Same here: They are deleted, that is expunged.  In IMAP there is no
> distinction between "delete" and "expunge": 

By “delete” I mean “mark with the \Deleted flag”

> You might refer to the /process/ of deleting messages that invokes
> flagging them with a special flag \Deleted.

Your use of “process” and “invoke” in the sentence above don't make
any sense to me, leaving me a bit confused.

> Messages that are flagged this way are always
> expunged:
> 
>  - directly on the EXPUNGE command
> 
>  - indirectly by a CLOSE command on a mailbox opened read/write

I don't see how that can be true...  unless read/write refers
*only* to the ability to remove messages from the mailbox, and is
totally independent of the ability to add messages and set flags.  I
have used IMAP clients that will give me a choice of whether to simply
mark messages as \Deleted or actually expunge the messages when I
delete them in the client.  I could move new messages into those
folders and set flags without causing an EXPUNGE.

> WL flags messages \Deleted and then calls EXPUNGE.

Yes, that part at least I understood.

Thanks,

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com