What does the list_folders() method of mailbox.Maildir actually ?do (if anything)?

[Jeff McNeil]

On Sep 25, 4:13 pm, tinn... at isbd.co.uk wrote:
> Jeff McNeil <j... at jmcneil.net> wrote:
> > On Sep 25, 3:22 pm, tinn... at isbd.co.uk wrote:
> > > I can't get the list_folders() method of the mailbox.Maildir class to
> > > do anything remotely useful.  It seems to do nothing at all.  I have a
> > > directory which contains a number of maildir malboxes:-
>
> > >     chris$ ls -l /home/chris/Mail/apex
> > >     total 24
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 charles.rustin
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 greg
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 maureenMcgoldrick
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 ram
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:46 sarahLagley
> > >     drwx------ 5 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:46 symonSmith
> > >     chris$ ls -l /home/chris/Mail/apex/ram
> > >     total 12
> > >     drwx------ 2 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 cur
> > >     drwx------ 2 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 new
> > >     drwx------ 2 chris chris 4096 2009-04-30 09:45 tmp
>
> > > If I run the following code:-
>
> > >     #!/usr/bin/python
> > >     #
> > >     #
> > >     # Mail archiving utility
> > >     #
> > >     import mailbox
>
> > >     topLevel=mailbox.Maildir("/home/chris/Mail/apex")
> > >     print topLevel.list_folders()
>
> > > It just outputs "[]".
>
> > > Am I doing something totally wrong or is list_folders() completely broken?
>
> > > --
> > > Chris Green
>
> > The Maildir++ spec states that folders need to begin with a period.
> > The list_folders method enforces that:
>
> >     def list_folders(self):
> >         """Return a list of folder names."""
> >         result = []
> >         for entry in os.listdir(self._path):
> >             if len(entry) > 1 and entry[0] == '.' and \
> >                os.path.isdir(os.path.join(self._path, entry)):
> >                 result.append(entry[1:])
> >         return result
>
> > The above example is from 2.6.  Your structure is simply a list of
> > Maildir compliant directories below '/home/chris/Mail/apex.' They're
> > not, in the Maildir++ sense of the word, folders.
>
> So where does it say in the Python documentation that list_folders()
> works only with Maildir++?  It's a big and non-obvious limitation to
> my mind.
>
> My maildir hierarchy is created by mutt which is a *very* standards
> compliant MUA, surely standard python libraries should work with
> standard maildirs not some wierd extension thereof.
>
> --
> Chris Green


The doc says that "Folders of the style introduced by the Courier mail
transfer agent are also supported. Any subdirectory of the main
mailbox is considered a folder if '.' is the first character in its
name."  It's not an explicit endorsement of Maildir++, but it touches
on what it considers a folder definition. I'm treading on hazy memory
here, but I believe Maildir++ is the definition provided by the
Courier folks.

--
Thanks,

Jeff
mcjeff.blogspot.com