dovecot - Oct 2009 - New backend

Hi

I intend to write a new virtual backend for dovecot. Are there any hacking
docs describing how the code is organized, eventually also important structs
and how to hook myself into the system, or do I have to go the classical
way?

Thanks

--Flavius

On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 12:29 +0200, Aspra Flavius Adrian
wrote:
> I intend to write a new virtual backend for dovecot. Are there any hacking
> docs describing how the code is organized, eventually also important
structs
> and how to hook myself into the system, or do I have to go the classical
> way?
Unfortunately there are no docs yet. But the important files to read
are:

src/lib-storage/mail-storage.h
src/lib-storage/mail-storage-private.h
src/lib-storage/mailbox-list.h
src/lib-storage/mailbox-list-private.h

Are you implementing a filesystem based backend or some database based
backend? The mailbox-list needs to be implemented only for databases.
src/lib-storage/index/cydir/ shows a really simple backend
implementation that can work as an example, even if you're not using
filesystem. For SQL there's a really old example that no longer works,
but might be helpful:
http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot/2007-November/026632.html

Also the newer the Dovecot version is, the simpler it is to implement a
backend. For example the number of lines of code in cydir is:

v1.1: 1260 lines
v1.2: 1282 lines (some more features added)
v2.0: 1119 lines (even more features, but still less code)
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> Are you implementing a filesystem based backend or some database based
> backend?
>
It's going to be couchdb-based. Are you aware of any existing efforts
towards this direction? I'd be glad to give a helping hand.

Anyway, thanks for the information, I'll have a look at the API.

I've also found doc/wiki/Design.txt, is the information described there
still valid for version 2.x (with respect to the header files you
recommended me about, of course)? I would prefer to write my code
future-oriented, for 2.x.

I'm also going to use some external libs. Is it ok to link dynamically to
cURL and some other json library? (couchDB has a RESTful API).