On Sun, Jan 20, 2002 at 12:08:44PM -0600, David Rock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was just wondering what the real differences were between maildir and
> mbox formats? I know mbox is an appended file while maildir is a
> separate directory for each mail (each what, exactly)?
>
> What are the benefits of using one type over the other?
>
> Thanks.
Maildir has the significant advantage that it requires no locking,
making it safer to use in environments without good locking primitives,
and that your whole mailbox can never get corrupted by one delivery
going awry, since each message lives in its own file. Having had my
inbox mysteriously corrupted once years ago, I think that that is a
significant advantage. Maildir has the disadvantages that it is
nonstandard (not really a problem -- you can very easily save everything
in a maildir mailbox to an mbox mailbox if you want to give it to
someone whose mailer doesn't understand maildir) and that it takes up
more space on disk, since even a tiny message will use up a whole disk
block. Speed can go either way, depending on the filesystem.
Traditional unix filesystems are very slow at reading huge directories.
Perhaps mutt should support maildirs split up into subdirectories for
this reason? But it doesn't now.
-Daniel
--
Daniel E. Eisenbud
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"We should go forth on the shortest walk perchance, in the spirit of
undying adventure, never to return,--prepared to send back our embalmed
hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms."
--Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"
