PR_SEARCH_KEY

The PR_SEARCH_KEY property contains a binary-comparable key that identifies correlated objects for a search.

Quick Info

Remarks

The PR_SEARCH_KEY property provides a trace for related objects, such as message copies, and facilitates finding unwanted occurrences, such as duplicate recipients.

PR_SEARCH_KEY is one of the base address properties for all messaging users. For more information on the base address properties, see Base Address Properties.

MAPI uses specific rules for constructing search keys for message recipients. The search key is formed by concatenating the address type (in uppercase characters), the colon character ':', the e-mail address in canonical form, and the terminating null character. Canonical form here means that case-sensitive addresses appear in the correct case, and addresses that are not case-sensitive are converted to uppercase. This is important in preserving correlations among messages.

For message objects, PR_SEARCH_KEY is available through the IMAPIProp::GetProps method immediately following message creation. For other objects, it is available following the first call to the IMAPIProp::SaveChanges method. Because PR_SEARCH_KEY is changeable, it is unreliable to obtain it through GetProps until a SaveChanges call has committed any values set or changed by the IMAPIProp::SetProps method.

For profiles, MAPI also furnishes a hard-coded profile section named MUID_PROFILE_INSTANCE, with PR_SEARCH_KEY as its single property. This key is guaranteed to be unique among all profiles ever created, and can be more reliable than the PR_PROFILE_NAME property, which can be, for example, deleted and recreated with the same name.

The following table summarizes important differences among the PR_ENTRYID, PR_RECORD_KEY, and PR_SEARCH_KEY properties.

See Also

Base Address Properties, PR_RESPONSIBILITY, PR_STORE_RECORD_KEY