Re: [Evolution] Evo hangs with one particular email

[Ross Burton <r burton 180sw com>]

On 06 Jul 2001 09:21:39 -0500, Brady Hegberg wrote:
> I'm not sure exactly does "Expunge" does.  It seems to physically move
> all the emails into wherever they've been "virtually" moved.  Is it
> different from "Empty trash"?

Expunge comes from the IMAP methodology root of Evolution - when a
message is delete in the UI, it is only marked as "To Be Deleted". At a
later point in time the user expunges the mail box, which forces the
server to re-write the mailbox files to permentely erase the deleted
message.  "Empty Trash" simply runs an expunge on all folders which have
a deleted mail in (at least that it how it appears to work, the Trash
folder is a virtual folder which shows all messages marked as deleted).

Many people ask why there is this mark/expunge routine. I don't know for
sure but it's probably due to the fact that the traditional mail folder
format is as one large file, with each message following the other.  To
remove a single email would require re-writing the entire folder, and on
folders with thousands of mail in this can take several seconds.  By
batching all of the rewriting into a single operation, it is much more
efficient than multiple single-mail removal operations.

Ross
--
Ross Burton                     Software Engineer
OneEighty Software Ltd          Tel: +44 20 8680 8712
Cygnet House                    Fax: +44 20 8680 8453
12-14 Sydenham Road             r burton 180sw com
Croydon, Surrey CR9 2ET, UK     http://www.180sw.com./
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