david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) (07/12/89)
While I was dialing into our Sun from home, a member of my family picked up the telephone line. Some spurious characters were generated, which may have included things like ^C or ^Z, etc. Anyway, it happened while I was exiting elm and doing the unnecessary save of messages. Many of my recent incoming messages were lost as a result. I know this is mostly my fault, but it seems like there are a number of things that could be done to improve the situation. For instance, I liked the 2.1 PL1 behavior where it did not re-save your mailbox every time you read new mail. Second, it could trap ^C and do some kind of error recovery that would not result in lost data. It seems that due to this problem, and due to full partitions while saving, I have lost many messages from elm. I would like to encourage improvements in this area, and discussion from others who have had similar problems. -David- -- Bitnet: david@wubios.wustl ^ Mr. David J. Camp Internet: david%wubios@wucs1.wustl.edu < * > Box 8067, Biostatistics uucp: uunet!wucs1!wubios!david v 660 South Euclid Washington University (314) 36-23635 Saint Louis, MO 63110
syd@DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein) (07/13/89)
david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) writes: >It seems that due to this problem, and due to full partitions while >saving, I have lost many messages from elm. I would like to encourage >improvements in this area, and discussion from others who have had >similar problems. -David- I think its time to set the record straight: Elm does not rewrite the file if there is no change.... There is a change, the status of the messages has changed. If you don't change a status, then it doesn't rewrite the mailbox. If we desire to keep status information, there is no way around this one. As to the full partition problem, we have acknowledged that Elm does not check the return status of writes. It needs to do so, and it is on the to.do list. When it gets done is a matter of volunteers. Anyone care to do it? -- ===================================================================== Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 syd@DSI.COM or {bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235