From: Massimiliano Mirra <list@...>
Date: 2002-07-10T05:33:28+09:00
Subject: Re: SV: SV: [ANN] Archive 0.2

On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 01:07:04AM +0900, Thomas S�ndergaard wrote:
> Isn't this unnecessarily low level access - I don't see a need for exposing
> the raw header data. Also, I don't see a reason for treating the header and
> data parts as if they are somewhat similar (ie. parts). It seems like
> "over-generalization"?

Perhaps, but it has worked fine for me so far. :-)

> > One nice thing of this design is that a mbox Entry can, for example,
> > implement a to_zip method. [...]
> 
> I don't see any reason that mbox Entry should now about zip archives (to_zip
> method implies some knowledge). 

I don't see a problem with it, I've always been happy with things like
String#to_i or String#to_a.

> With a general archive interface it is
> possible to do better, and write generic code for writing entries of one
> archive to another regardless of the archive type.

I have troubles figuring this.  Could you please post a pseudo code
example?

> > If you have any questions, just ask.
> I don't understand the interface completely. When you iterate over the items
> in the archive, will you generate Entry objects that contain the full
> uncompressed contents of the archive entry? That *might* be reasonable for
> mbox files but for zip and tar archives it seems unreasonable, 

It is in the to do list already.  The first incarnation of Archive
(which I posted quite some time ago) had a preloading/caching scheme,
but it was growing too complicate.  When I started rewriting it, I
decided to shed it entirely and concentrate on the interface, and add
loading schemes afterwards.  Plans included exposing entries as IO
objects, handling via WeakRef those who were cached, and caching the
`map' of the archive (even marshalling to disk, as Thomas Hurst
suggested) so that it wouldn't have to be rescanned.

> I have been using Outlook Web Access from home to read mail, and there are
> no configuration options for the sending format. This one is send with
> Outlook Express - I hope the format is more agreeable to you.

Yes, it is more agreeable to standards, thus more agreeable to mutt,
thus more agreeable to me.  Thanks. :-)


Massimiliano