ocaml-maildir

This is a preliminary release of an OCaml library to access directories in the Maildir format.

Installation

1. Download the current version of ocaml-maildir.

   cd ~/tmp
   git clone https://github.com/nojb/ocaml-maildir
   

2. Configure, build and install

   cd ocaml-maildir
   make
   

3. Read the documentation in lib/maildir.mli.

Usage

First we have to load the library.

# #use "topfind";;
- : unit = ()
# #require "maildir";;

Create a brand new Maildir folder

The option argument ~init:true will cause the folder to be created if it does not exist already. Omit the argument or pass false to skip folder creation.

# let md = Maildir.create ~init:true "Maildir";;
val md : Maildir.t = <abstr>

The object md keeps an in-memory index of the contents of the Maildir folder contents. This index can become out-of-date if another program is accessing the same Maildir folder. Whenever we want to update the index, we can do so by calling Maildir.update md.

Add a new message

This creates a new file with the contents "Hello World!"; returns a unique name that identifies this message. Messages are written to the tmp subdir and then moved to new.

# let uid = Maildir.add md "Hello, World!";;
val uid : string = "1394354127.R2ee8b87P28044Q0.lapc-br1-081.maths.private.cam.ac.uk"

A newly arrived message only has one flag, NEW:

# Maildir.flags md uid;;
- : Maildir.flag list = [Maildir.NEW]

Messages that have the NEW flag reside in the new subdirectory:

$ ls Maildir/*
Maildir/cur:

Maildir/new:
1394354127.R2ee8b87P28044Q0.lapc-br1-081.maths.private.cam.ac.uk

Maildir/tmp:

Change message flags

If we remove the NEW flag, then the message will transparently be moved to the cur subdir. It will be moved back if we add the flag back.

# Maildir.set_flags md uid [Maildir.FLAGGED; Maildir.SEEN];;
- : unit = ()

We can check that the message has been moved to the cur subdir and the filename now indicates the corresponding flags.

$ ls Maildir/*
Maildir/cur:
1394354127.R2ee8b87P28044Q0.lapc-br1-081.maths.private.cam.ac.uk:2,FS

Maildir/new:

Maildir/tmp:

Remove message

Finally we remove the message

# Maildir.remove md uid;;
- : unit = ()

We can check that the file has disappeared:

$ ls Maildir/*
Maildir/cur:

Maildir/new:

Maildir/tmp:

Comments

Comments, bug reports and feature requests are very welcome: [email protected].