IMAP4 Extension for Fuzzy Search
RFC 6203

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                       T. Sirainen
Request for Comments: 6203                                    March 2011
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721

                    IMAP4 Extension for Fuzzy Search

Abstract

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

Status of This Memo

   This is an Internet Standards Track document.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6203.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Sirainen                     Standards Track                    [Page 1]
RFC 6203                   IMAP4 FUZZY Search                 March 2011

1.  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.

2.  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 [KEYWORDS].

3.  The FUZZY Search Key

   The FUZZY search key takes another search key as its argument.  The
   server is allowed to perform all matching in an implementation-
   defined manner for this search key, including ignoring the active
   comparator as defined by [RFC5255].  Typically, this would be used to
   search for strings.  For example:

      C: A1 SEARCH FUZZY (SUBJECT "IMAP break")
      S: * SEARCH 1 5 10
      S: A1 OK Search completed.

   Besides matching messages with a subject of "IMAP break", the above
   search may also match messages with subjects "broken IMAP", "IMAP is
   broken", or anything else the server decides that might be a good
   match.

   This example does a fuzzy SUBJECT search, but a non-fuzzy FROM
   search:

      C: A2 SEARCH FUZZY SUBJECT work FROM user@example.com
      S: * SEARCH 1 4
      S: A2 OK Search completed.

   How the server handles multiple separate FUZZY search keys is
   implementation-defined.

   Fuzzy search algorithms might change, or the results of the
   algorithms might be different from search to search, so that fuzzy
   searches with the same parameters might give different results for
   1) the same user at different times, 2) different users (searches

Sirainen                     Standards Track                    [Page 2]
RFC 6203                   IMAP4 FUZZY Search                 March 2011

   executed simultaneously), or 3) different users (searches executed at
   different times).  For example, a fuzzy search might adapt to a
   user's search habits in an attempt to give more relevant results (in
   a "learning" manner).  Such differences can also occur because of
   operational decisions, such as load balancing.  Clients asking for
   "fuzzy" really are requesting search results in a not-necessarily-
   deterministic way and need to give the user appropriate warning about
   that.

4.  Relevancy Scores for Search Results

   Servers SHOULD assign a search relevancy score for each matched
   message when the FUZZY search key is given.  Relevancy scores are
   given in the range 1-100, where 100 is the highest relevancy.  The
   relevancy scores SHOULD use the full 1-100 range, so that clients can
   show them to users in a meaningful way, e.g., as a percentage value.

   As the name already indicates, relevancy scores specify how relevant
   to the search the matched message is.  It's not necessarily the same