路线图相当短。从 IMAP 4rev1 RFC、RFC 3501开始。它有一个Normative References
附录列出了它直接依赖的所有 RFC,并在文档的适当位置引用了这些 RFC。
真正重要的——您可以按此顺序阅读它们——是 Internet 消息格式(我建议使用RFC 5322而不是 RFC 2822 来更新)、MIME RFC (RFC 2045、2046和2047 )、Content-Disposition ( RFC 2183 )、TLS ( RFC 2595 ) 和 UTF-7 ( RFC 2152 ) 来处理非 ASCII 文件夹名称。
一旦你完成了基线协议,你会想要开始查看扩展。其中一些将使您的生活更轻松......当服务器也提供支持时。你肯定会想要 IDLE ( RFC 2177 ) 和 UIDPLUS ( RFC 4315 )。SORT ( RFC 5256 ) 也是一个不错的选择,NAMESPACE ( RFC 2342 ) 可能很有用。您可能还需要处理一些额外的 SASL 身份验证机制,因此从RFC 1731开始,并根据需要从那里开始。
以下是附录 A 中的文字:
The following documents contain definitions or specifications that
are necessary to understand this document properly:
[ABNF] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234,
November 1997.
[ANONYMOUS] Newman, C., "Anonymous SASL Mechanism", RFC
2245, November 1997.
[CHARSET] Freed, N. and J. Postel, "IANA Character Set
Registration Procedures", RFC 2978, October
2000.
[DIGEST-MD5] Leach, P. and C. Newman, "Using Digest
Authentication as a SASL Mechanism", RFC 2831,
May 2000.
[DISPOSITION] Troost, R., Dorner, S. and K. Moore,
"Communicating Presentation Information in
Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition
Header", RFC 2183, August 1997.
[IMAP-TLS] Newman, C., "Using TLS with IMAP, POP3 and
ACAP", RFC 2595, June 1999.
[KEYWORDS] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to
Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
March 1997.
[LANGUAGE-TAGS] Alvestrand, H., "Tags for the Identification of
Languages", BCP 47, RFC 3066, January 2001.
[LOCATION] Palme, J., Hopmann, A. and N. Shelness, "MIME
Encapsulation of Aggregate Documents, such as
HTML (MHTML)", RFC 2557, March 1999.
[MD5] Myers, J. and M. Rose, "The Content-MD5 Header
Field", RFC 1864, October 1995.
[MIME-HDRS] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) Part Three: Message Header
Extensions for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047,
November 1996.
[MIME-IMB] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part
One: Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC
2045, November 1996.
[MIME-IMT] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part
Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, November 1996.
[RFC-2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC
2822, April 2001.
[SASL] Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security
Layer (SASL)", RFC 2222, October 1997.
[TLS] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol
Version 1.0", RFC 2246, January 1999.
[UTF-7] Goldsmith, D. and M. Davis, "UTF-7: A Mail-Safe
Transformation Format of Unicode", RFC 2152,
May 1997.
The following documents describe quality-of-implementation issues
that should be carefully considered when implementing this protocol:
[IMAP-IMPLEMENTATION] Leiba, B., "IMAP Implementation
Recommendations", RFC 2683, September 1999.
[IMAP-MULTIACCESS] Gahrns, M., "IMAP4 Multi-Accessed Mailbox
Practice", RFC 2180, July 1997.