POLL: what should reconstruct -f do?

[David Lang]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011, Bron Gondwana wrote:

> The question came up from the following bug report:
>
> http://bugzilla.cyrusimap.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=3449
>
> Where there were spool files on disk, but no meta data left.
> Reconstruct gave no information about the files on disk at
> all.
>
> I see 4 options, can I'd like some opinions on what people
> think reconstruct should do.  Speak now(ish) or hold your
> peace!
>
> 1) what we do now - require a cyrus.header in the directory
>   or ignore it.
>
> 2) like (1) but warn about the directory with no cyrus.header
>
> 3) add the mailbox if there's a directory, don't require
>   cyrus.header.
>
> 4) like (3) - but check that there's at least one cyrus.* file
>   OR at least one message file in the directory before
>   creating the mailbox.  (so an empty directory doesn't generate
>   a bogus mailbox, and neither does one containing nothing that
>   looks like it belongs in a mailbox)

I think either 3 is the best answer with 4 being a reasonably close second.

I tend to be a person who would rather have extra stuff show up and deal with it 
rather than run the risk of not getting something that I need.

I don't think that there's a real problem with creating 'extra' mailboxes if 
there are extra directories, it's easy enough for the user to delete them. 
saying that there needs to be a message or a cyrus.* file is a huristic that 
sounds like it will work most of the time, but not always.

David Lang