[mod.computers.vax] Number of NEWMAIL messages

todd@CINCOM.UMD.EDU.UUCP (04/04/87)

The number of new mail messages as reported during login is stored in
SYS$SYSTEM:VMSMAIL.DAT in a byte (word? longword? I don't remember) field
along with information such as your MAIL personal name, your mailfile
directory, and various other options you can SET within mail. The file
is indexed by username. I wrote a program once that took as argument a
username, read through the users mailfile (even in subdirectories if that
option is in use) counting the number of messages in folder NEWMAIL, and
corrected the number in VMSMAIL.DAT. The only problem was that I wantonly
extended the record lengths by using a fixed-length string in a variable
length record (sigh). If I clean it up and enough people want it I can
post, it's not all that big.

The newmail counting program is useful for 'action at a distance', but
is not all that necessary. Individual users can repair the count by
using the command READ/NEW on an EMPTY NEWMAIL FOLDER as many times
as there are fictitious new mail messages. Ignore the 'no more messages'
warning when performing this repair.

Todd Aven
the Softwear Sweatshop
todd@cincom.umd.edu
todd@umcincom[.bitnet]
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