Max. length of MSO MailItem.EntryID

[DPM]

Hi,

I am using a DB to store the EntryIDs of MS Outlook emails, so that these
mails can be referred later using the DB.

What I noticed is the length of the MSO MailItem.EntryID is,
- 48 characters for normal MSO 2003 SP2
- 140 characters for MSO using exchange server

Could someone please advice what is the maximum length, a MSO
MailItem.EntryID could have with any other configuration, to decide on the
length of the DB field?
or
Is there any other fixed length MailItem attribute which could be used to
uniquely identify a mail item in MSO?

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

There is no fixed length, it's more or less up to the store provider. Don't
rely on a specific length. In most cases you'd be safe setting a size of 256
characters, but I wouldn't want to guarantee it.

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Discovered the hard way many years ago that the Exch EntryID can exceed the
max Text length of 255 for an Access DB using Contact.EntryID's (assuming
the same applies to MailItem). While this may simply be a coincidence, the
issue only surfaced for 2 European installations (European Exch beta sites
worked just fine and and never was an issue for North American Exch configs.
Issue was fixed very early so no way to know if geography was at
all significant). Problem solved by changing to a Memo field.

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[DPM]

Thanks Ken.

There is no fixed length, it's more or less up to the store provider.
Don't rely on a specific length. In most cases you'd be safe setting a
size of 256 characters, but I wouldn't want to guarantee it.

 

[DPM]

Thanks Karl.
So it's ideal to use a Memo field.

Discovered the hard way many years ago that the Exch EntryID can exceed
the
max Text length of 255 for an Access DB using Contact.EntryID's (assuming
the same applies to MailItem). While this may simply be a coincidence, the
issue only surfaced for 2 European installations (European Exch beta sites
worked just fine and and never was an issue for North American Exch
configs.
Issue was fixed very early so no way to know if geography was at
all significant). Problem solved by changing to a Memo field.

Karl
___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Will readily agree with Ken - vast majority of cases will likely be handled
with a text(255) field. If you're writing for a single location and aren't
running over the 255 char limit with anything now - you're probably safe
with that size as were all the Exch sites using our programs at the outset.
Since the issue got dealt with as soon as the problem was located, have no
idea how prevasive the issue of > 255 characters is or under what
circumstances - never looked back to find out. It took several months for
the problem to surface originally and in both reported incidents involved
new customers who coincidently installed/eval'd within days of each other.

So yes, if you never want to worry about field size for EntryID under any
circumstances - memo field would be the choice.

Karl

___________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - Importer 1.3 / DataPorter 2.0 / Exporter
"Power contact importers/exporters for MS Outlook '2000/2007"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

That would be my recommendation also, a Memo field. That way you never have
to worry about exact id length at all.