Re: Odysseus update, change in file storage

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:02:33 -0500, Bill Cole wrote:

Eudora mailboxes are limited to 32767 messages.

On Mac; fixed on Windows.

Which is off-topic in *this* newsgroup

Odysseus (thread topic) is cross-platform,
so its issues and comparisons may also be.

but it is worth mentioning in a
context that might be on-topic here that the TOC differences break
cross-platform portability of Eudora mailboxes

What about the line endings (which, if they _have_ to be changed,
necessarily also change relative message offsets in the TOC)?

One might have wished that each program could have accepted
all sensible line endings; would that have made compatibility possible?

I don't know what removed the 32767 limit from Windows,
but a user isn't asked to reformat TOCs, and I've seen someone claim
that they can inter-operate all versions (alternately) at any time,
on the same platform of course.

so that if a former Windows user wants to bring very large Eudora mail archives
over to Mac, they may need to be broken into smaller mailboxes.

(and yes, I am one of those people who believe that 1994 was a tragic
year for Eudora... )

I don't know the inference, but you can enlighten me if you wish.

In archives (e.g. zip) it's _files_ (mailboxes)
which are counted, however, not messages,
so multi-message mailboxes (even a mere 32767 messages each)
raise the limit on "messages per archive"
by a factor of tens of thousands of times as many,
compared to the limit using "one message per file."

The latter runs into a brick wall at 65535 objects
per "classic" zip archive (limit removed
by less universal "extended" formats tied to specific vendors,
each of which "encourages" everyone else to adopt theirs :)

http://schmidt.devlib.org/file-formats/zip-archive-file-format.html
http://www.honeynet.org/scans/scan24/sol/pedram/reference/zip-archive-file-format.html

It is odd that both of those say nothing about a files/archive limit,
when that's what you are talking about.

I listed those as places to find general information about zip file formats,
not intended as related only to the last prior sentence.

And by the way, you are not quite correct.

The definitive description of the Zip format is
http://www.pkware.com/documents/casestudies/APPNOTE.TXT, which describes
the Zip64 extensions to support largefiles and a 64-bit files/archive field.

As far as I can see, BOTH pkware AND Winzip have "defined" their own _extensions_
and each has "invited" everyone else to adopt theirs,
which is why I didn't make links to either one of them.

Now, are both company's extensions compatible?

I've thought not, but if they are, my next paragraphs are moot,
and I'll be glad of it:

Just because pkware was the earlier company does not mean that they
can control everything that becomes of material released to public domain,
any more than IBM controlled the DES encryption that they originated, etc.

But I didn't set out to argue which is "right" or "better" -- only to mention
that if "extended" formats are incompatible (and if Windows
hasn't adopted either as built-in), then "extended" zip archives
are tied (for most users who just want to use pre-packaged software)
to whichever system they make them with (or others who decide
to make themselves compatible, in case "7-Zip" etc.
join any particular bandwagon, or perhaps work with both,
joining the crowd who tend to say "I'll decode anything,
but I'll only create mine" -- which is just like email, where it's
"I'll import from any other program, but there's no export" :)

Zip64 is *NOT* legally encumbered, and there are free (public
domain Java and BSD-licensed C) implementations available so that anyone
who uses Zip and wants to get past the 64k limit but lacks adequate
programming skills (e.g. the guys up in Redmond) can freely borrow the
work done by their betters.

Enjoy the crusade :)

I should add that I don't think that the *technical* hard limits on the
number of messages in a mailbox (no matter how that is implemented) are
really significant in a MUA to 99.9% of users, because the human factors
kick in at much lower levels than 32k messages in one place and drive
most people to subdivide even historical archives into smaller sets that
they can work with and not feel lost in. Once in a while someone shows
up here and moans about the 32k messages/mailbox problem, but it always
seems to be someone trying to make Eudora into a data mining tool or
some other sort of gross misapplication. For the most part, people do
not want or need their MUA to present a collection of tens of thousands
of messages to them in one flat list, so hard technical limits built
into a storage model that end up only limiting that sort of use don't
mean a lot pragmatically.

I don't know where this is going, but my point, re Odysseus' file storage
(which started as the topic :) is that if IDS stores only one message per file,
the rather small limit of 65537 objects in the original zip format
will require many people to go to a less universal "extended" format
to make zip archives, while good old "Classic" Eudora's MBOX format,
even if limited to 32767 messages per mailbox, could have expanded that limit
(where "classical zip" format gives out) some tens of thousands of times over.

In other words, my whole point was that IDS is making a poor choice,
and I brought up this whole "zip business" (a common archiving method)
to illustrate one of the many reasons why it's poor.

"Remember Alice? -- this is a song about Alice!"
[Arlo Guthrie - "Alice's Restaurant"]
http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5_7C0QGkiVo

-- .

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