bug#38938: [PROPOSED] Prefer Lisp integers to numeric strings in IMAP

[Andy Moreton]

On Sun 20 Sep 2020, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:
>
>> On Jan 04 2020, Paul Eggert wrote:
>>
>>> Since Emacs has bignums now, it can represent IMAP integers
>>> directly rather than as numeric strings.
>>> * lisp/gnus/gnus-cus.el (gnus-extra-group-parameters):
>>> * lisp/gnus/nnimap.el (nnimap-transform-headers)
>>> (nnimap-convert-partial-article, nnimap-request-list)
>>> (nnimap-parse-flags, nnimap-transform-split-mail):
>>> * lisp/net/imap.el (imap-parse-resp-text-code)
>>> (imap-parse-status):
>>> Use Lisp integers to represent IMAP integers.
>>
>> This breaks backward and forward compatibility.
>
> Yeah, so while it'd be better to use integers here, I don't think it's
> workable, and I'm closing this bug report.

It may be useful to update the comments in the existing code to ensure
maintainers who are not aware of this compatibility issue know not to
attempt a similar change in the future.

    AndyM