[Mailman-Developers] Requirements for a new archiver

Kevin McCann kmccann at bellanet.org
Wed Oct 29 13:20:20 EST 2003


On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 10:13, Brad Knowles wrote:
> At 3:06 PM -0500 2003/10/27, Kevin McCann wrote:
> 
> >  I was thinking about using MHonarc to enhance the archive experience but
> >  it doesn't work with MySQL directly so Mail::Box just might be what the
> >  doctor ordered.
> 
> 	No database handles "BLOB" (Binary Large OBject) storage well. 
> Even high-end databases have problems in this area.  IMO, this is a 
> bad idea.

Agreed. I was thinking more along the lines of storing the message body
as is, which, yes, might sometimes be base-64 encoded. Content headers,
boundary string, etc. could also be stored so as to make decoding (by a
web app) a cinch. You could go further and create attachment files and
point to it in an url or file field. But keep the message intact, as it
was received. That way if you want to get into after-the-fact message
delivery (manual resend, or maybe a member missed a message and wants it
in his/her inbox), it's not a chore.

The Messages_ table that Lyris uses in its database is a good starting
point if one wants to do the same kind of thing. I can dig up the specs
if there is interest.

- Kevin 






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