Thread View: comp.mail.misc
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Started by Kris Schneider
Tue, 04 Aug 1992 20:55
What's the "magic" of a Unix mailbox file?
Author: Kris Schneider
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1992 20:55
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 1992 20:55
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[ Article crossposted from comp.mail ] [ Author was Kris Schneider ] [ Posted on Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:07:26 GMT ] (Haven't heard anything from comp.mail, thought I'd try here...) Howdy, I inadvertently appended a couple of news messages to a mailbox without treating it as a mailbox. Actually, I switched news readers and the new one defaulted to treating save files as "normal". Anyway, when I now invoke mail on the mailbox, the new messages are not listed. However, if I look at the last message listed, the new ones have actually been appended to the end of that message. So, the question is, what magic goes on when a message is saved to a file in mailbox format? Which leads to, how can I modify that mailbox file so that mail recognizes those new messages? Thanks! -- Kris A. Schneider EMail: kris.wbst129@xerox.com XRXMail: Kris:Wbst129:Xerox
Re: What's the "magic" of a Unix mailbox file?
Author: Martin Rex
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 11:29
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 11:29
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kris@xerox.com (Kris Schneider) writes: : the new ones have actually been appended to the end of that message. : : So, the question is, what magic goes on when a message is saved to a file in : mailbox format? Which leads to, how can I modify that mailbox file so that : mail recognizes those new messages? I don't think there's many special things about the mbox file. Only that Unix sendmail usually puts a line im the Form From <user>@<host> <date> in the first line of every mail message. The Mail User Agent usually seperates the mails in one File by searching for these lines. If there's any line contained in the mail containing the word From followed by a blank character (Space, ASCII 32), then this line is equippend with a leading ">" character. The regular From: in the Mail-Header is the word From followed by a colon, and therefore doesn't count as mail seperator. If you want your news-articles be seperatly accepted by your Mail User Agent, then insert the required line in front of each message. -Martin -- Martin Rex | "Have the courage to take Rechenzentrum | your own thoughts seriously, Fachhochschule fuer Technik Mannheim | for they will shape you." E-Mail: mrex@aix01.rz.fht-mannheim.de | -- Albert Einstein
Re: What's the "magic" of a Unix mailbox file?
Author: Anthony Heading
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 13:44
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 13:44
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mrex@aix01.rz.fht-mannheim.de (Martin Rex) writes > I don't think there's many special things about the mbox file. > Only that Unix sendmail usually puts a line im the Form > > From <user>@<host> <date> > > in the first line of every mail message. > If there's any line contained in the mail containing the word > From followed by a blank character (Space, ASCII 32), then this > line is equippend with a leading ">" character. The regular From: > in the Mail-Header is the word From followed by a colon, and therefore > doesn't count as mail seperator. I think in fact that this line is inserted by /bin/mail on most BSD systems which (at least under Ultrix) when invoked as "mail" uses the flag -r to allow specification of the sender, and writes that line and the message into the system mailbox. I tried to make sendmail preserve usernames when present, so that lines like: From Anthony <heading@hermes.mod.uk> Thu Aug 6 14:34:35 1992 delimited the messages. Some aspects of the mail system coped, but Emacs RMAIL for example decided that this wasn't valid, and in fact seems to have quite a complicated regexp to match this line, demanding it seemed that there was only one word before the date part started for example... Is RMAIL correct to be so fussy? Or is it the case, as mrex writes above, that "^From " is the correct delimiter? Anthony. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Anthony Heading heading@hermes.mod.uk DRA Malvern UK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Re: What's the "magic" of a Unix mailbox file?
Author: Neil Rickert
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 15:35
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1992 15:35
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In article <BsKE8J.2w2@breeze.rsre.mod.uk> heading@breeze.rsre.mod.uk (Anthony Heading) writes: >> From <user>@<host> <date> >I tried to make sendmail preserve usernames when present, so that >lines like: > >From Anthony <heading@hermes.mod.uk> Thu Aug 6 14:34:35 1992 Just a moment - this is just plain WRONG! There are two classes of addresses associated with an email message. The HEADER addresses, which appear on "To:", "Cc:", and "From:" headers (and a few others) are designed for human use as well as machine uses. But the ENVELOPE addresses are used purely for transmission and similar purposes, and the user name has no place in envelope addresses. The "From " line contains an envelope address. It is, for example, the sender envelope address when mail is forwarded via UUCP. The format you are using is wrong for that. Software has every right to complain, and perhaps some software might even interpret the '<' and '>' as input/output redirection. Keep your user names in their proper place. >Emacs RMAIL for example decided that this wasn't valid, and >in fact seems to have quite a complicated regexp to match this >line, demanding it seemed that there was only one word before the >date part started for example... > >Is RMAIL correct to be so fussy? Or is it the case, as mrex >writes above, that "^From " is the correct delimiter? RMAIL is absolutely correct.
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