Re: [RFC] imap-send: escape backslash in password

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

It's been a long time since I've done anything with IMAP, but I think
another alternative would be to send it as a "literal", like:

  {6}
  foobar

That's relatively easy to format correctly using the current printf
specifiers that imap_exec() takes. Though as I said elsewhere in the
thread, perhaps imap_exec() should provide a different interface.

Yes, I was scanning the RFC and came to the same conclusion ;-)

I also think it might be reasonable to scrap all of this ad-hoc imap
code in favor of curl, which already gets these cases right. We already
have a curl-backed implementation. I think we just left the old code out
of conservatism. But it seems somewhat buggy and unmaintained, and I
wonder if we aren't better off to simply encourage people to install
curl.

That is a very attractive direction to go in, especially in the mid
to longer term.  Perhaps we declare that the ad-hoc hardcoded imap
is deprecated in the next cycle and drop the support by the end of
this year?