[comp.mail.elm] Leaving Mailbox Unchanged?

david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) (02/24/89)

In elm, when I use the Quit command, and have not deleted any messages,
and leave my messages in the incoming mailbox, elm says: "Leaving
Mailbox Unchanged".  However, when I reenter elm, it smartly know which
messages I had already read and which are new, as evidenced by the 'N'
next to the message description.

If elm leaves the mailbox unchanged, how does it know which messages are
new?  Does it actually make some change to the mailbox, or is there some
other means?
-David-
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jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) (02/24/89)

In article <318@wubios.wustl.edu> david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) writes:
}In elm, when I use the Quit command, and have not deleted any messages,
}and leave my messages in the incoming mailbox, elm says: "Leaving
}Mailbox Unchanged".  However, when I reenter elm, it smartly know which
}messages I had already read and which are new, as evidenced by the 'N'
}next to the message description.
}
}If elm leaves the mailbox unchanged, how does it know which messages are
}new?  Does it actually make some change to the mailbox, or is there some
}other means?


Elm stores a zero-length file in .elm/last_read_mail.  Elm touches this
file and compares the date on the file with the dates for each piece of
mail.



JB
-- 
Jonathan Bayer			      Beware: The light at the end of the
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syd@dsinc.UUCP (Syd Weinstein) (02/26/89)

In article <318@wubios.wustl.edu> david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp) writes:
>If elm leaves the mailbox unchanged, how does it know which messages are
>new?  Does it actually make some change to the mailbox, or is there some
>other means?
There is a file in the .elm directory called last_read_mail which
is used to determine if mail is new.  When you exit elm normally (ie
not with the x command), it updates the time on this file.

-- 
=====================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP                   Elm Coordinator
Datacomp Systems, Inc.				Voice: (215) 947-9900
{allegra,bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd	                FAX:   (215) 938-0235

les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (02/27/89)

In article <471@ispi.UUCP> jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) writes:

>Elm stores a zero-length file in .elm/last_read_mail.  Elm touches this
>file and compares the date on the file with the dates for each piece of
>mail.

This means, of course that it only knows which messages are newer than
the last time you quit elm.  It would be nice if it worked more like
rn which keeps track of which articles you have actually seen so that
if you quit without reading everything, the unread messages would still
be new.

Les Mikesell