Re: IMAP URLs

[Martin J Duerst <[e-mail]>]

Chris Newman wrote:

>I also believe there is a bug in RFC 1808 with respect to multiple
>parameters.  I think the relative URL should inherit all parameters form
>the base URL, except those that are specified in the relative URL.  The
>current spec indicates that if *any* parameter is present in the relative
>URL, it overrides all parameters in the base URL.  Comments?

For some cases, it looks simpler if parameter values are inherited
individually. But there are two problems.

The first problem is one of convenience: In some cases, parameters
stay almost the same, and only a value or two changes. In other
cases, the names of parameters can change widely even if the
rest of the URL stays the same. For these cases, the spec according
to RFC 1808 is definitely more convenient.

The second problem is somewhat more basic: If you want to change
a list of parameters, how do you indicate the absence of a parameter?
One possibility would be to indicate the parameter again, with an
empty value, but in some cases, an empty parameter value and the
complete absence of the parameter will not mean the same.

Therefore, it looks very much like the specification for not
partially inheriting parameters as in RFC 1808 makes a lot of
sence, and is definitely not a bug, even if in some cases,
it may not exactly be optimal.

Regards, Martin.