Hello Charlie,
On Saturday, June 14, 2003 at 11:23:35 PM you [CL] wrote (at least in
part):
>>> i receive messages that are poorly broken up into paragraphs - there
>>> isn't a separating blank-line, or starting spaces, instead just long
>>> trailing spaces after the last sentence.
>>> 1. If anyone could modify ReWrap to do this for me
>> That's impossible to do reliably without artificial intelligence.
>> If you think I'm wrong, try writing a rule in plain English that's
>> detailed enough to write a PCRE macro from it.
CL> disclaimer: i haven't programmed anything since grade 10 Pascal, and
CL> i've forgotten most of that ... but i had thought it could be fairly
CL> simple. Use the reg-exp to do a search for any long string of spaces,
CL> if found, then insert blank line, and proceed to next character.
CL> algorithm something like this:
CL> if there is " "
CL> then insert blank line
Well ... let me disillusion you: the text you presented did not
contain those space.
What looks to you like "white space" is exactly this: _WHITE SPACE_,
which is not necessarily identical to 'space characters'. It's only
you making 'spaces' out of it for "mental visualization".
Here's the text you presented with all <space> characters replaced by '@'
,----- [ ]
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]@through,@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL
PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED],@and
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED],@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL
PROTECTED]'[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@it!
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]@"crashed"@[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED],@[EMAIL
PROTECTED]'[EMAIL PROTECTED]@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
| renovation..
`-----
You see: the line simply ends, your brains fills the "gap" with
"spaces" to "fill" lines up to equal length.
So the algorithm you're search has to determine the length of a line,
look forward to the next line and if this is significant longer insert
a line break. This is
1.) a very simple description, I haven't thought yet about possible
and maybe often seen exceptions
2.) Not possible with one RegExp, it needs _calculation_, "store and
look forward" and some aspects more a _programming language_
offers. Sadly TB! macros and QTs are only in a limited fashion
comparable to a programming environment.
I'm quite sure with a lot of nested %IF macros, complex regular
expressions, recursions 'til moon and back and a little portion of
voodo this might be solvable with a QT ... But I don't see it's
worth the work necessary to make it work, not even worth the try.
Best is to
- First time you get such a message from somebody insert the empty
lines manually and ask for better formatting in the next mail
- Second time you get such a message some somebody quote w/o
correction. Make visible to him/her how ugly and unreadable this
looks like.
- Third time: refuse quoting. Quote only _ABSOLUTE NECCESSARY_
keywords, not a single complete sentence. On request declare you
don't have the time to correct the format every time to a useable
and readable fashion.
- Fourth time: don't answer, reply back you were not able to read the
message in a limited amount of time. :-)
Sounds all a bit drastic, limits can of course be change to "Fifths
time: don't correct ...", "10th time: refuse quoting ..", depending on
sender, but at least it works.
The best I got so far was my boss sending an Outlook message (as
usual; and I refuse to call the output of Outlook _mail_. It's
electronic messages, not more) with the text "to be done", his fancy
1*10^6 lines signature, a superfluous VCard (hey, I know his phone
number; even if I'd forget it I'd go to the next door and ask him
directly ...) and the _real_ order in _subject_.
Well ... my answer was completely in subject as well, w/o _any_ mail
text. Since than I've never received such a message again ... OK, the
signature and vcard 's still there, but he learned that "subject" of a
mail is a short description, not the whole text. :-)
CL> --
P.S.: The correct signature delimiter would be '<dash><dash><space>',
yours's still missing the <space> :-)
--
Regards
Peter Palmreuther
(The Bat! v1.63 Beta/11 on Windows 2000 5.0 Build 2195 Service Pack 3)
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -
Woody Allen -
________________________________________________________
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
