Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 01:48:09 +0800 (CST) From: Brian Tao <taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw> To: Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Re: Mail... Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.91.950401014023.1567A-100000@aries.ibms.sinica.edu.tw> In-Reply-To: <9503291957.AA20552@cs.weber.edu>
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On Wed, 29 Mar 1995, Terry Lambert wrote:
>
> Mail really wants a record oriented file system, or as you suggest, one
> file system object per message.
Precisely. Since we are all used to seeing hierarchical
filesystems, this model can be applied to a mail spool rather well.
Each individual user's mailbox is represented as a directory
structure, where the "inodes" make up the mailbox index. Each message
is represented as an individual file inside that directory. If you
want to get fancy, you can map each message to a subdirectory, with
the headers, message body and MIME attachments as files. Large
organizations could then build up trees of mail filesystems and
instruct mail readers to descend a hierarchy of directories the same
way you would trace from a top-level domain down to the invidiual host
and then to the user.
But this is quickly digressing from the original matter. I only
suggested a mail filesystem half-seriously, but it is an intriguing
problem. FreeBSD should be the first to do it. :)
--
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao
taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw <-- work ........ play --> taob@io.org
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