IMAPEXT                                                      T. Sirainen
Internet-Draft                                            April 16, 2009
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: October 18, 2009


                    IMAP4 Extension for Fuzzy Search
                    draft-ietf-morg-fuzzy-search-00

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   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Abstract

   This document describes an IMAP protocol extension enabling server to
   perform searches with inexact string matching and assigning relevancy
   scores for matched messages.



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Note

   A revised version of this draft document will be submitted to the RFC
   editor as a Proposed Standard for the Internet Community.  Discussion
   and suggestions for improvement are requested, and should be sent to
   morg@ietf.org.


1.  Conventions used in this document

   In examples, "C:" indicates lines sent by a client that is connected
   to a server.  "S:" indicates lines sent by the server to the client.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [Kwds].


2.  Introduction

   When humans perform searches in IMAP clients, they typically want to
   see the most relevant search results first.  IMAP servers are able to
   do this in the most efficient way when they're free to internally
   decide how searches should match messages.  This document describes a
   new SEARCH=FUZZY extension that provides such functionality.


3.  The FUZZY Search Key

   FUZZY search key takes another search key as its argument.  For this
   search key server is allowed to perform all string matching in an
   implementation-defined manner instead of performing a strict
   substring search as requred by [RFC3501].  It MUST NOT modify the
   behavior of search keys that don't compare strings.  For example:

   C: A01 SEARCH FUZZY (SUBJECT "Helo mom" SMALLER 5000 SEEN)
   S: * SEARCH 1 5 10
   S: A01 OK Search completed.

   Besides matching messages with subject "Helo mom", the above search
   may also match messages with subjects "Hello mom", "Hello mother", or
   anything else the server decides that might be a good match.
   However, the result MUST NOT contain messages that don't have a \Seen
   flag set or whose size is 5000 bytes or more.







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4.  Relevancy Scores for Search Results

   The server SHOULD assign a search relevancy score for each matched
   message when the FUZZY search key is given.  This allows the client
   to show the most relevant search results first.  Relevancy scores are
   meaningful only when compared to other relevancy scores from the same
   server.  This means that this specification doesn't define a "best
   relevancy" score.  Instead the values are represented by an 32 bit
   integer and implementations can decide how high values they want to
   use.  For example some implementations might decide to use only
   values 1-5 while others might decide to use the full 32 bit range.

   If server advertises the ESEARCH capability as defined by [ESEARCH],
   the relevancy scores can be retrieved using the new RELEVANCY return
   option for SEARCH:

   C: A02 SEARCH RETURN (RELEVANCY ALL) FUZZY TEXT "Helo"
   S: * ESEARCH (TAG "A02") ALL 1,5,10 RELEVANCY (4 107 42)
   S: A02 OK Search completed.

   RELEVANCY return option SHOULD NOT be used unless FUZZY search key is
   also given, otherwise servers MAY decide to give the same relevancy
   score to all messages.


5.  Extensions to SORT

   If server advertises the SORT capability as defined by [SORT], the
   results can be sorted by the new RELEVANCY sort criteria:

   C: A03 SORT (RELEVANCY) UTF-8 FUZZY SUBJECT "Helo"
   S: * SORT 5 10 1
   S: A03 OK Sort completed.

   The message with the highest score is returned first.  As with
   RELEVANCY return option, RELEVANCY sort criteria SHOULD NOT be used
   unless FUZZY search key is also given.

   [[anchor6: TODO: Describe also RELEVANCY with ESORT.]]


6.  Formal Syntax

   The following syntax specification uses the augmented Backus-Naur
   Form (BNF) as described in [ABNF].  It includes definitions from
   [RFC3501], [IMAP-ABNF] and [SORT].





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       capability         =/ "SEARCH=FUZZY"

       score              = number
          ;; <number> from [RFC3501]

       score-list         = "(" [score *(SP score)] ")"

       search-key         =/ "FUZZY" SP search-key

       search-return-data =/ "RELEVANCY" SP score-list
          ;; Conforms to <search-return-data>, from [IMAP-ABNF]

       search-return-opt  =/ "RELEVANCY"
          ;; Conforms to <search-return-opt>, from [IMAP-ABNF]

       sort-key           =/ "RELEVANCY"


7.  Security Considerations

   This document is believed not to have any security implications.


8.  IANA Considerations

   IMAP4 capabilities are registered by publishing a standards track or
   IESG approved experimental RFC.  The registry is currently located
   at:


      http://www.iana.org/assignments/imap4-capabilities


   This document defines the X-DRAFT-I00-SEARCH=FUZZY [[anchor7: Note to
   RFC Editor: fix before publication]] IMAP capability.  IANA is
   requested to add it to the registry.


9.  Acknowledgements

   Alexey Melnikov has helped with this document.


10.  Normative References

   [ABNF]     Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", RFC 5234, January 2008.




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   [ESEARCH]  Melnikov, A. and D. Cridland, "IMAP4 Extension to SEARCH
              Command for Controlling What Kind of Information Is
              Returned", RFC 4731, November 2006.

   [IMAP-ABNF]
              Melnikov, A. and C. Daboo, "Collected Extensions to IMAP4
              ABNF", RFC 4466, April 2006.

   [Kwds]     Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3501]  Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
              4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.

   [SORT]     Crispin, M. and K. Murchison, "Internet Message Access
              Protocol - SORT and THREAD Extensions", RFC 5256,
              June 2008.


Author's Address

   Timo Sirainen

   Email: tss@iki.fi



























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