Mailbox
=======

'src/lib-storage/mail-storage.h' and 'mail-storage-private.h' describes mailbox
API, among others. Mailbox life cycle often goes like:

 * 'mailbox_alloc()' allocates memory for the mailbox and initializes some
   internal settings, but doesn't actually try to open it.
 * 'mailbox_open()' opens the mailbox. Instead of opening a mailbox, you can
   also create it with 'mailbox_create()'.
    * If you're immediately syncing the mailbox, you don't need to open it,
      because it's done implicitly. This reduces your code and error handling a
      bit.
 * 'mailbox_close()' closes the mailbox, so that it needs to be opened again if
   it's wanted to be accessed. This is rarely needed.
 * 'mailbox_free()' closes and frees the mailbox.

There are a lot of functions to deal with mailboxes. The most important ones
are:

 * 'mailbox_get_status()' to get a summary of mailbox, such as number of
   messages in it.
 * <Syncing> [Design.Storage.Mailbox.Sync.txt]: 'mailbox_sync_*()' to
   synchronize changes from the backend to memory.
 * <Transactions> [Design.Storage.Mailbox.Transaction.txt]:
   'mailbox_transaction_*()' for transaction handling. All message reads and
   writes are done in a transaction.
 * <Searching> [Design.Storage.Mailbox.Search.txt]: 'mailbox_search_*()' is
   used for searching messages. Even simple operations like "get all messages"
   go through this API, it'll then simply do "search all".
 * <Saving> [Design.Storage.Mailbox.Save.txt]: 'mailbox_save_*()' and
   'mailbox_copy()' is used for saving/copying new messages to mailbox.

(This file was created from the wiki on 2011-08-29 04:42)