Re: [S-nail] Format of ~/dead.letter isn't mbox.

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Hello Stephen,

"Stephen Isard"  wrote:
 |On Sat, 27 Aug 2016, Ralph Corderoy ralph-at-inputplus.co.uk |s-nail| \
 |wrote:
 |> The ~/dead.letter created by s-nail's mail(1) isn't mbox format.  It's
 |> just a catenation of email bodies over time.
  ..
 |The s-nail behaviour is the same as that of current mailx and I'm pretty 
 |sure of all versions of Gunner Ritter's nail, from which mailx descends. 
 |My memory could be faulty, but I think I remember the mail program of 
 |the unix from Bell Labs on a pdp11-40 behaving the same way in 1975. 
 |That predates sendmail; mail could only go to other users of the same 
 |machine.

6th edition simply unlinks the old file and then writes the plain
message as collected so far.

 |I think the intention was that you could read the text back into a new 
 |message that you were composing. See the ~d command.  Having headers in 
 |the file would make that messy.

For one yes, but i have changed my mind and the standard mandates
$DEAD to be a valid (POSIX) MBOX.  We now place the From_ line,
and let's see what the future brings -- in the end we shouldn't
loose any data, at least.  Removing lines is easier than restoring
content from memory, so that is for sure.  (Ralph and myself had
a short communication on the GNU tar bug ML last afternoon...)

 |I don't personally care one way or the other, but you asked for 
 |history...

What we really need would be a sophisticated (does-the-right-thing
(tm)) postpone functionality.  Etc. etc.

Ciao, and also a nice Sunday ^_^

--steffen

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Re: [S-nail] Format of ~/dead.letter isn't mbox.

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Hello again.

Ralph Corderoy  wrote:
 |The ~/dead.letter created by s-nail's mail(1) isn't mbox format.  It's

This is even standardized behaviour.

 |just a catenation of email bodies over time.  This means subject, etc.,

That contradicts the standard and at a glance back to 6th edition
Unix.  But then again that mechanism is so under-developed...

 |are lost when a user INTRs twice, and it's tedious to pull the file
 |apart and back into emails.

I'm sorry.  The idea seems to be to be able to restart and load in
$DEAD via ~d.  I must admit -- only used for testing.

 |Old memories had me believe ~/dead.letter was mbox format, allowing
 |simple splitting on /^From /, but I don't think this BSD mail program
 |has done that in s-nail's lineage?  I've certainly experienced
 |mbox-format ~/dead.letters, and see sendmail(8) also writes to the file,
 |and is probably not alone.  I've checked sendmail/deliver.c's mailfile()
 |and it writes mbox;  "putfromline".

Interesting: You are right in that the standard explicitly
requires the From_ line to be written.

I have rewritten it!, and now we at least produce the From_ line
which makes this an MBOX.  It is still not compliant because we
don't produce any header lines, maybe i can do something about
that before v14.9 and will fix it up, but i can't promise that.

On [crawl] for at least one more week, though.

 |So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows the history of this discrepancy?
 |Both have a BSD heritage.  mbox format is arguably better than cat'd
 |bodies, so s-nail could grow an option to use that format.  By default?
 |But I'm more interested in any archaeology folks have.

I admit the [timeline] branch is not complete, probably it will
never be (maybe someday i'll clone Spinellis' [1], but that is
gigabytes of data, but if, maybe a completely new repo for
s-mailx?  But tags there are not so many, last time i looked -- so
much more than we have, that is), but i think the relevant answers
it can give.

  [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo.git

Aside from that i am really looking forward for postponing etc.,
but really not with the current execution paths, i already have
written too much code that won't survive the rewrite and is thus
doubled work.  But it is terrible, terrible, and i hate it.

Ciao, and a nice metallic Sunday!

--steffen

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Re: [S-nail] Format of ~/dead.letter isn't mbox.

[Stephen Isard]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2016, Ralph Corderoy ralph-at-inputplus.co.uk |s-nail| wrote:

> The ~/dead.letter created by s-nail's mail(1) isn't mbox format.  It's
> just a catenation of email bodies over time.
(snip)...
I've checked sendmail/deliver.c's mailfile()and it writes mbox
(snip)...
> So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows the history of this discrepancy?

The s-nail behaviour is the same as that of current mailx and I'm pretty 
sure of all versions of Gunner Ritter's nail, from which mailx descends. 
My memory could be faulty, but I think I remember the mail program of 
the unix from Bell Labs on a pdp11-40 behaving the same way in 1975. 
That predates sendmail; mail could only go to other users of the same 
machine.

I think the intention was that you could read the text back into a new 
message that you were composing. See the ~d command.  Having headers in 
the file would make that messy.

I don't personally care one way or the other, but you asked for 
history...

Stephen Isard

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[S-nail] Format of ~/dead.letter isn't mbox.

[Ralph Corderoy]

Evening all,

The ~/dead.letter created by s-nail's mail(1) isn't mbox format.  It's
just a catenation of email bodies over time.  This means subject, etc.,
are lost when a user INTRs twice, and it's tedious to pull the file
apart and back into emails.

Old memories had me believe ~/dead.letter was mbox format, allowing
simple splitting on /^From /, but I don't think this BSD mail program
has done that in s-nail's lineage?  I've certainly experienced
mbox-format ~/dead.letters, and see sendmail(8) also writes to the file,
and is probably not alone.  I've checked sendmail/deliver.c's mailfile()
and it writes mbox;  "putfromline".

So I guess I'm asking if anyone knows the history of this discrepancy?
Both have a BSD heritage.  mbox format is arguably better than cat'd
bodies, so s-nail could grow an option to use that format.  By default?
But I'm more interested in any archaeology folks have.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy

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