21/02/04 chris : >>Maybe others could share their experience too, as it's apparently not >>uncommon for Emailer to be used as an engine for automated business mail >>and database management. > >I used to do it via AppleScripts. But I found it tedious and VERY slow in >the long run. Now what I do is dump out all the emails in question to a >single text file using a script called "Many to Text" (I think that is >what it is called, its on my other computer). I got the script from Fog >City. > >That dumps out all the selected emails into a single large text file. >Each email is seperated by a line of "***" so you can tell when one ends >and the next starts. > >From there I write a custome utility in REALbasic. Although probably >anything with more speed to its parsing will work just fine, C, Perl, >maybe Java... its really just to get away from the speed of AppleScript >and to have a little more flexability in writing the parsing rules. I've >always found AppleScript to be difficult in that regard (probably due to >a lack of knowledge on how to do it right).
That's smart. I will consider such a move for bulk conversions of existing data. I find text parsing tedious in AppleScript too, mainly because I've yet to give a serious try to grep in AppleScript; it doesn't look hard (check Satimage/Smile dictionaries), it's just that I'm used to the comfort of BBEdit (syntax coloring of grep patterns, saving patterns, etc.) But direct Emailer - FileMaker scripting may still be more convenient for real-time operation (ie filling the DB on the fly when messages arrive using Emailer schedules and filters). In that case AppleScript's slowness isn't an issue unless you receive hundreds of messages every 2 minutes (shortest Emailer schedule). Other than that the scripts will probably finish processing in time for the next schedule, which is smoother than letting humans do it and no different from using faster methods but checking mail less often. ---- VRic ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
