Re: looking for Cyrus mail format documentation

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, John Alton Tamplin wrote:

> The point is if you expose the internal API for accessing the mailstore
> you are stuck with it and can't make changes.  I can't imagine there is
> a big need for this or other people wanting to write code to implement
> that API, so if you really want to do this it is probably better as Rob
> suggested to just link to the Cyrus code that manipulates it (and watch
> for version skew between programs accessing the mail store).

Well, I don't recommend this for anything that isn't part of the cyrus
distribution.  The chance of version skew (especially in subtle ways) is
very high, and certainly this isn't a good option if the library is being
linked staticly.

For any external program, I strongly recommend you only use the
standard/provided interfaces (protocols, and deliver) and *NOT* the
internal APIs.

Documentation of the internal APIs is useful from a cyrus developer
standpoint, but not from a usefulness to users standpoint.

-Rob

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Rob Siemborski * Andrew Systems Group * Cyert Hall 207 * 412-268-7456
Research Systems Programmer * /usr/contributed Gatekeeper