Reported again by the submitter's colleague at LINET after #223 was
closed: duplicate checking was implemented for vCard and never for LDIF,
so re-importing an address book still leaves a second copy of everything.
That was deliberate at the time -- the matching key was an open question
I did not want to answer alone -- but the answer had already been given
on #174 and I closed the issue without acting on it.
The answer, in the submitter's words: an attribute that *can* change is
fine, because it will not have changed between two imports minutes apart.
An import is not a sync. That makes the `dn` usable -- it is the only
identity the file carries, and Mozilla's schema defines no UID -- and it
needs no guessing at all, unlike the name-plus-email fallback I had been
weighing.
So `uidFromDn` derives a namespaced, stable uid from the distinguished
name, normalised for the case and spacing two exports of one directory
differ in. A card the book already holds under that uid is updated rather
than duplicated, merged the way the vCard import merges: what the file
carries wins, what it does not mention is left alone. Reported as created
and updated, which is the pair that was asked for.
Three things worth knowing:
Matching is per address book, so two customer directories that each hold
a `cn=John Smith` stay two people as long as they are filed separately.
Imported into one book they would merge, which is the one way this can be
wrong and the reason the escape hatch is worth naming.
The look-alike count stays, and now means something narrower: entries
that `dn` matching could not catch -- one whose `dn` moved between
exports, and anything imported before there was a `dn` to match on. Those
are still only counted, never merged.
A file holding two entries under one `dn` is malformed, since a directory
cannot, and now becomes one card instead of two sharing an identity.
FEATURES gains the re-import behaviour for both formats; it documented
neither.
#228 skipped a vCard whose UID the book already held. The reporter asked for
the opposite on #174 and he is right: the reason to import a file a second
time is usually that the first one was not right, so skipping means a
corrected export corrects nothing.
A merge, not a replacement. Properties the file carries overwrite what is
here; properties it does not mention are left alone, so a phone number added
in ihasmail after the first import survives a re-import of the original file.
The cost is that a field genuinely deleted at the source stays here, which is
the better way to be wrong -- the other way round loses work nobody asked to
lose. Worth confirming with him rather than assuming.
`addressBookIds` is left off the patch. The card is already in this book, so
saying it again says nothing, and saying it on a card that is also in another
book would move it.
Creates and updates now share one batch budget. Stalwart counts every object
in a /set together, so batching the halves separately would send 300 new and
300 changed as two calls of 300 and be refused for a limit of 500 that neither
half exceeds.
LDIF is untouched and still reports look-alikes without acting on them, since
what it should match on is the question still open on #223. Both imports keep
one answer shape so a caller need not know which it called; LDIF's `updated`
is always 0, which is the honest number rather than a missing field.
The message a vCard attached to a message shows changes with it: the newer
copy now wins instead of being dropped, so it says the contact was brought up
to date rather than that nothing was added.
Refs #223.
The half of #223 that can move while the matching question is still open.
Mozilla's schema defines no UID, so the import invents one and a re-import
duplicates everything. Whether to guess an identity from a name and an address
instead is the reporter's call and he has not made it -- but the harm that was
actually reported was confusion rather than duplication: somebody imports a
file twice and cannot tell what happened.
So the import now counts how many of the entries look like contacts the book
already held, and says so in a second message. Every card is still imported.
Nothing is skipped and nothing is merged, which is the point: counting is a
different act from matching, and it takes no decision away from the person who
still owes us one.
The likeness key is name plus one address, and it is wrong in both directions
by design -- two colleagues sharing a name and an alias collapse, somebody
whose address changed since the last export looks like a stranger. That is
tolerable for a number on a toast and would not be tolerable for a merge,
which is exactly why the number is all it does.
The scan the vCard import already makes for UIDs now collects names and
addresses on the same request, so this costs no extra round trip. It is read
before anything is created, so a file that repeats a person twice counts as
two new cards rather than as a duplicate of itself.
If the answer comes back "match on name and email", the matching is written
and becomes a skip instead of a count.
Refs #223.
jcoffey-dev