Programming Internet Email

The Transaction State

The STAT command requests that the server send a “drop listing” of the mailbox containing a positive response, the number of messages in the mailbox, and the size of the mailbox in octets. A drop listing for a mailbox with 23 messages in it, totaling 4351 octets, would look like this:

Client: STAT
Server: +OK 23 4351

The format for a drop listing is rigid. Implementations should not extend drop listing to contain other information.

Messages that have been marked for deletion with a DELE command are not counted in the STAT response.

The LIST command requests a “scan listing” from the server, either for a message or for all messages in the chosen mailbox. A scan listing shows size information for messages.

A scan listing for a given message number (generated by a LIST command with a message number as an argument, e.g., LIST 3) would return a single-line response consisting of a positive status indicator followed by the message number and the size of the message in octets. An example response for message number 3 in a mailbox that is 356 octets long would look like this:

Client: LIST 3
Server: +OK 3 356

A scan listing for all messages in a mailbox (generated by a LIST command without an argument, e.g., LIST) would return a multiline response. The first line would consist of a positive status indicator and a comment. The data lines would consist of a message number and a size for each message in the box, followed by a closing line consisting of a period (.) on a line ...