[imp] mailbox prefix problem

[Joseph Brennan]

> ok, then why should it be an empty string rather than 'mail'?

Assuming the U Wash imap server as we seem to be...

The built-in server configuration (actually in the code, not a config
file) is to root paths to the user's $HOME.  Thus .mailboxlist
is $HOME/.mailboxlist.  The client (imp or any other client) default
configuration is an empty string for "server directory" or whatever
each client calls it, so for a folder name Sent it asks the server
for just Sent, and the server refers to $HOME/Sent.  If the client is
configured to use mail/, then for a folder name Sent it asks the
server for mail/Sent, and the server refers to $HOME/mail/Sent.

But didn't you say you hacked the imap server to use $HOME/mail ?
In this case, my understanding is that .mailboxlist would be
$HOME/mail/.mailboxlist, which is what you said?  But to get
mailbox $HOME/mail/Sent, the client should ask for Sent, since
if it asks for mail/Sent, the server looks for $HOME/mail/mail/Sent.
If you have imp pre-pending mail/ and the server prepending mail/,
that may be the problem.

At U Wash, mail is in a whole separate directory tree from $HOME,
so they don't deal with this mess.  That explains things.


Joseph Brennan                           postmaster@columbia.edu
Academic Technologies Group, Academic Information Systems (AcIS)