Re: Timezone in mbox separator (From) line

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Kurt Hackenberg <kh@panix.com> ha escrit:

> Maybe the IMAP server is also questionable. How does it transmit the
> mbox From_ time to the client,

The envelope date is returned in a FETCH responce with the INTERNALDATE
data item (if such is requested).

>  and why?

According to RFC 3501, section 7.4.2.  "FETCH Response":

  "INTERNALDATE
           A string representing the internal date of the message."

The internal date is defined as:

  "The internal date and time of the message on the server.  This
   is not the date and time in the [RFC-2822] header, but rather a
   date and time which reflects when the message was received.  In
   the case of messages delivered via [SMTP], this SHOULD be the
   date and time of final delivery of the message as defined by
   [SMTP]."
   
(ibid. sect. 2.3.3.  "Internal Date Message Attribute")  

Notice the "not the date and time in the [RFC-2822] header" passage.

Date and time of the final delivery is stored in the message envelope,
which, for the mbox format, is the From_ line, therefore this value is
used.

> What does that server do when the mail is stored some
> other way, not in mbox format?

The value obtained from the first existing header from the following
list: "Received:", "X-Envelope-Date:", "Date:" (in that order).

Regards,
Sergey