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[Imap-protocol] INTERNALDATE and server's timezone

E-mail headers
From: Jan Kundrát <jkt@gentoo.org>
To: imap-protocol@u.washington.edu
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2018 12:34:41 -0000
Message-ID: 4757CF81.2070004@gentoo.org permalink / raw / eml / mbox 
Hi,
when debugging my IMAP parser, I wanted to test my timezone parsing.
According to RFC3501, the INTERNALDATE parameter should be "immutable",
but it seems that with two IMAP server implementations I tested (dovecot
using maildir and uw-imapd using mbox), it isn't preserved literally. In
my test, my parser launches IMAP server directly (and talks to it
through pipes), so the IMAP process inherits its timezone settings.

uw-imapd, mbox, TZ=Europe/Prague (+0100):
* 1 FETCH (INTERNALDATE "20-Mar-2005 11:12:55 +0100")

uw-imapd, mbox, TZ=US/Central (-0600)
* 1 FETCH (INTERNALDATE "20-Mar-2005 11:12:55 -0600")

dovecot (another data), maildir, TZ=Europe/Prague
* 1 FETCH (INTERNALDATE "03-Mar-2007 15:02:36 +0100")

dovecot, maildir, TZ=US/Central:
* 1 FETCH (INTERNALDATE "03-Mar-2007 08:02:36 -0600")

I realize this is kind of artificial problem (server administrators
don't change their timezone settings every day), but I'd like to ask if
this is correct behavior.

Cheers,
-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth

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E-mail headers
From: MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU
To: imap-protocol@localhost
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2018 12:34:41 -0000
Message-ID: alpine.WNT.0.999999.0712061113270.884@Shimo-Tomobiki.Panda.COM permalink / raw / eml / mbox 
On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Jan Kundr?t wrote:
> when debugging my IMAP parser, I wanted to test my timezone parsing.
> According to RFC3501, the INTERNALDATE parameter should be "immutable",
> but it seems that with two IMAP server implementations I tested (dovecot
> using maildir and uw-imapd using mbox), it isn't preserved literally.

The problem with mbox is that some forms of the mbox format internal 
header does not include timezone information.  Thus, the timezone has to 
be inferred from the "local time zone", hence causing your seeming 
discrepancy since you're running imapd with different "local time zones".

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
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