README   Mail::Box


The Mail::Box folder is a modern mail-folder manager (at least on
the moment of this writing)  It is written to replace Mail::Folder,
although it interface is different.

The most important manual-pages are Mail::Box::Manager, Mail::Box,
and Mail::Box::Message.  They explain parts of the features in
more detail than in this document.

===== Features

Although the implementation of Mail::Box is young, it has already
a large number of features.  BE WARNED: NOT EVERYTHING WHAT IS
IMPLEMENTED HAS BEEN TESTED!!!!  PLEASE HELP TESTING!

= AUTOLOAD messages.

Everyone who has used MIME::Entity will agree that this object is
slow: detailed parsing of e-mail messages by MIME::Entity is twice
as slow as the sloppy work of Mail::Internet (where it is based on).

The Mail::Box folders are trying to keep the messages stored in the
mailbox file(s) for as long as possible.  Only if the user of the
folder really needs the content of the message, it is read from
file and parsed.

Demand-parsing/delayed parsing of messages is implemented using
the standard AUTOLOAD mechanism, which means that it is not visible
to the users of the folder!  This mechanism also reduces the memory
foot-print of the program enormously.

A few (or all) header-lines are available, even when a message is
not parsed, to try to avoid autoloading as much as possible.  For
instance the `Subject'-line is taken, because it is nearly always
needed.

Even so: messages which are written into a folder, without being
modified (even when they were parsed) will be copied directly from
original folder into the new one on byte-by-byte basis: no change.


= Support for various folder-types

Currently supported:
* Mbox folders, see Mail::Box::Mbox
  One file per folder, so many messages in each file.
* MH folders, see Mail::Box::MH
  One directory per folder, each message in a seperate file.

On the wishlist:
* Maildir folders
  If anyone can tell me how they work exactly
* Emaul folders
  To be compatible with Mail::Folder.
* and so on.

= Support for message thread-discovery

A very basic detection of message threads is implemented.  On the
moment, only the in-reply-to and the reference fields are taken
into account.  This could be optimized, for instance by looking
at the subject.  Read more in Mail::Box::Threads.

= Various kinds of locking

There are three kinds of locking:
* Locking via a .lock (dotlock) file.
* Locking using flock
* Locking via a .lock (dotlock) file which is NFS-safe.
Read more in Mail::Box::Locker.

= Managing folders

A special folder manager was designed to keep track on opened
folders.  This is the main object (read its manual-page before
trying anything else).

= Tied access

If you like, you can tie a folder to an array, and fool around
with that one.  Read Mail::Box::Tie.


===== Differences with Mail::Folder

The popular Mail::Folder package is around for many years.  It is
written using Mail::Internet, instead of the more powerful
MIME::Entity messages.

An other large difference, is that the objects in Mail::Folder are
less clear than in Mail::Box.  The supported mail-box types are
seperately implemented, and share less code than they could.
The folders manage themselves instead of a seperate folder-manager
object.

Mail::Folder does not support discussion-thread detection, nor
autoloading of message data.  Therefore, it is much slower in
accessing the folders.

======

Author: Mark Overmeer
        mark@overmeer.net